


When It Rains

by cheshireflowers



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Doctor!Louis, F/F, Grey's Anatomy AU, M/M, Office Romance, aka the stereotypical grey's au i've wanted for years, doctor!harry, don't be fooled by the zayn/louis tag it's a blink and you'll miss it kind of thing, in which harry is derek and louis is meredith, lots of secret kisses and shared coffee and generally disgusting pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 58,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15863217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshireflowers/pseuds/cheshireflowers
Summary: Louis hears Harry chuckle again at that, and the next time he looks up the boy is scratching at the back of his neck and his eyes are on the floor. “It’s alright,” he smiles, sparing a glance in Louis’s direction before shaking his head. “I mean, it is a bit embarrassing on my part - here I am making you breakfast, and you don’t even remember who I am.”Louis gapes a bit at that, and a glance further into the kitchen confirms that Harry is in fact standing in front of the stove, spatula in hand. It reminds him of the razor he’s still holding in his own hand, and he awkwardly tucks it behind his back as he takes a step toward Harry.“No, no, no. I remember who you are, Harry. I remember… everything,” he reassures the lad. There’s a hint of red to his cheeks as he meets Harry’s eyes, and recalls precisely what everything had consisted of. “I’m just extremely hungover. And now I feel even worse, because I’m late for work and I definitely can’t stay for brekkie.”Or: The Grey’s Anatomy AU nobody asked for.





	1. First Day of My Life

**Author's Note:**

> To everyone who has had to listen to me complain about writing this fic for the past year, I'm so sorry. The idea as a whole has been a work in progress since... October 2017? And I'm only just posting it, nearly a year later. But hey, it's here! I really hope there's enough of you out there who enjoy both Harry and Louis and Grey's Anatomy to enjoy the hot mess that this fic has become. Or that it's a good enough story for y'all to enjoy regardless of how much of the Grey's content you recognize. 
> 
> In theory, this story does have a soundtrack; each chapter title is a different song. Take that information and use it as you will. 
> 
> Lastly, special thanks to Kit (thewindmakesthewaves) for helping me build this fic into what it is now. I wouldn't have made it past the first page without all of your help.

_"I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been, but I know where I want to go."_

_-[Bright Eyes](https://open.spotify.com/track/5OiaAaIMYlCZONyDBxqk4G?si=dketQjI9SEqCuzJAGux-2w)_

  ☂

Louis had never thought his first memory of Seattle would be a drunken one. But if he’s being honest, he had never thought he’d be practicing as a surgical intern at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the United States, either. And that deserves at _least_ one drink, right? Two, even. So, naturally, he’d decided to go out and celebrate with ten.

And - right. Of course. He was meant to begin his career at said hospital _today._ In roughly an hour. Bloody hell. He knows that the roads are wet - the quiet drizzle of rain is as consistent as it’s been since he arrived in Washington, and it’s bound to back traffic up something terrible. He’s definitely going to be late.

He sits up in bed with a quiet grunt, squinting into the relatively dim light of the room as he comes to terms with the state of himself. His head begins to pound immediately, and as he smooths his fringe back from his forehead, he mentally thanks drunken Louis for thinking to turn the shades down the night before. He nearly retracts his thanks, though, when he works up the courage to climb out of bed only to trip over a boot left smack in the middle of his path to the bathroom.

“Fuckin’ell,” he mutters, righting himself and continuing his short journey to the loo. He spends maybe 5 minutes in front of the mirror, struggling with his bedhead and brushing his teeth with the hope that he can scrub the taste of cheap beer and tequila out of his mouth with enough toothpaste. He’s already accepted the fact that he’s going to be late, but he certainly doesn’t want whichever resident he winds up assigned to thinking that he’s someone who regularly goes out and gets pissed the night before important work events (even if, in this moment, that’s exactly the type of person he is).

When he feels like his general appearance in presentable enough, he heads back toward the bedroom and throws on the first clean dress shirt that he can find, along with a pair of black jeans and the only professional-looking pair of shoes he owns. That’ll do it, he thinks - he’ll be changing into his scrubs later in the morning anyhow. The thought of it makes him smile, and with that he heads for the kitchen, as ready to face the day as he’s going to get. All he’s got to worry about now is where his keys and phone had landed in the midst of his trip to bed the previous night. Or so he thinks.

The fist thing that strikes him as odd when he enters the hallway is the smell of bacon and hash. He takes pause at first, but concludes moment later that it could very well be one of his neighbors cooking themselves a good brekkie before work. Not more than a few seconds later, though, his perfectly reasonable explanation is contradicted by a ruckus that _definitely_ comes from inside of his flat. He freezes, then, and takes a moment to or two to consider the sounds he can hear - more than anything, it sounds like someone is rummaging through drawers, but it doesn’t much matter. Louis lives alone, and there should _not_ be anyone rummaging through his kitchen. And _shit_ , this day has already gotten off to a rough start; as good an excuse as it would be for his tardiness at work, he really doesn’t need a robbery to top off his unfortunate run of luck.

A quick glance around the immediate area tells him that he’s got little to nothing within reach to threaten the intruder with, so he tip-toes back toward the bathroom to search for something there instead. He doesn’t find much - just his toothbrush and the disposable razor he uses to trim his beard, because as of now they’re the only two things he’s unpacked. He picks up the razor regardless, though, because it’s better than nothing and unlike the toothbrush, it actually has a somewhat sharp edge.

He’s as quiet as he can be as he creeps back out into the hallway, brandishing the razor and holding his breath. He stops just short of the kitchen and closes his eyes for a moment, willing his heart to stop its incessant pounding. It takes some mental preparation, definitely, because Louis has never had to confront a robber before, but eventually he gathers the nerve to leap around the corner, razor outstretched.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my flat?” he demands, doing his damndest to keep his voice from wobbling. That’s the trick with these types, right? Dominance. At least, he thinks he’s heard such a thing on one or two of the episodes of Criminal Minds he’s watched with his sisters. Composed or not, though, he’s still caught off guard when the apparent intruder turns to face him.

Firstly, the bloke isn’t wearing anything but a baby pink pair of boxer briefs, which is - well. Alright. And secondly, he’s definitely got a very large butterfly - or moth, perhaps? - tattooed on his stomach, and Louis has to stop and wonder if someone with such a tattoo could _really_ be all that threatening.

The intruder doesn’t actually say anything in response to Louis’s demand - rather, he raises his eyebrows and snorts before bursting into an odd, semi-hysterical sort of laughter. This lowers Louis’s guard even further, and it’s not long before he’s stood there staring at the half-naked man, absolutely bewildered.

“Mate, are you serious?” said man asks, laughing, still. Louis just stares, however, which must be a clear enough signal to his guest that he hasn’t a clue what’s going on. “I’m, uh. I’m Harry?” he tries, and Louis shakes his head. By now his arms have fallen to his sides (razor still dangling from one hand), and he’s more confused than anything. Butterfly-man must pick up on this, because he tries again to explain his presence - this time, in slightly better detail. “Right, I’m gathering that you don’t remember much, but… we definitely came home together last night, love. From the bar on 72 North, yeah?”

The tall bloke seems to be getting more and more sheepish the longer he attempts to explain himself, but the moment he mentions the bar, and calls him _love,_ Louis blinks. And it hits him.

-

_“Nice place you’ve got’ere, love,” Harry says, a moment before Louis backs him against the wall adjacent to the door. Louis knows that most of his things are still packed into boxes, and the flat doesn’t look lived-in in the slightest, which can only mean that Harry’s comment is sarcastic. He repays the obvious snark with a sharp nip to his jaw._

_“Mm, you’re really thinking about my flat? Right now?” He taunts, and presses the heel of one palm to the front of Harry’s jeans. Harry keens, of course, eyes pinching shut as he ruts against Louis’s hand._

_“Fuck,_ no, _absolutely not,” he grunts, grabbing at Louis’s hair with one hand and his arse with the other. “But - mm. I’d love for you to show me to the bedroom.”_

_Louis can hear the smirk in Harry’s voice as he says the words, and he can’t help but snort, pulling away from the pretty boy he’d met at the bar and acknowledging him with a nod._

_“Fair enough,” he says with a matching smirk, and takes Harry’s hand. “Let’s go.”_

_-_

“Oh, _fuck,”_ he swears, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and shaking his head. “I’m a bloody idiot, mate. I’m so sorry.”

Louis hears Harry chuckle again at that, and the next time he looks up the boy is scratching at the back of his neck and his eyes are on the floor. “It’s alright,” he smiles, sparing a glance in Louis’s direction before shaking his head. “I mean, it _is_ a bit embarrassing on my part - here I am making you breakfast, and you don’t even remember who I am.”

Louis gapes a bit at that, and a glance further into the kitchen confirms that Harry is in fact standing in front of the stove, spatula in hand. It reminds him of the razor he’s still holding in his own hand, and he awkwardly tucks it behind his back as he takes a step toward Harry.

“No, no, no. I remember who you are, Harry. I remember… everything,” he reassures the lad. There’s a hint of red to his cheeks as he meets Harry’s eyes, and recalls precisely what _everything_ had consisted of. “I’m just extremely hungover. And now I feel even worse, because I’m late for work and I definitely can’t stay for brekkie.”

Harry pouts a bit at that, and Louis can’t help but sigh - looking at him without beer goggles on, he can definitely see why they’d ended up where they had the previous night. As little time as he has to appreciate it at the moment, Harry is stunning, without a doubt.

“Well, I suppose that’s alright. Long as you remember my name,” he says, and Louis snorts.

“Don’t you worry, babe. I remember a lot more than just your name,” he quips, and warms at the happy smile that it prompts from his guest. “Honestly, though. I really _am_ running late, which isn’t quite what you want to be on your first day, so… can I trust you to let yourself out?”

“Absolutely,” Harry says, and reaches to turn off the stove. Louis wonders if he’ll wash the dishes before he leaves, too - he wouldn’t put it past him, at this point.

“Right, then. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon, love,” he says with a wink, mostly for the sake of being cheeky but also because he rather likes Harry’s smile, if he’s honest. He waits foracknowledgment before turning and making for the door, where, thankfully, it looks like he’s hung up his keys. He doesn’t make it very far, though, before he hears Harry call for him again.

“Um, Lou?” he calls from the kitchen, and Louis stops just short of the front door to glance over his shoulder. Harry is standing in the kitchen archway, and there’s an amused smile on his face as he gestures to Louis’s left hand. “You might want to leave that at home. Could make for a strange first impression,” he comments, and Louis is baffled for a split second before he realizes that he’s nearly carried his shaving razor out the door with him.

He scoffs and shakes his head, tossing the cheap, plastic thing onto the couch and reaching for his keys, instead. “Good point. Thanks, curly,” he grins, and turns to open up the door before he can be distracted again.

The last thing he hears before he makes his way out into the rain is Harry’s cheerful laughter, and he finds himself thinking as he sprints to his car that he truly does hope that he sees the quirky man and his even quirkier tattoos again.

-

The first thing that Louis notices about Northern Heights is that it’s absolutely _massive._ Logically, he knows that it’s probably a fairly average-sized hospital by the states’ standards, but that doesn’t change the fact that the type of medical facilities he’s used to seeing are the ones akin to the little old family clinics in Donny. This place dwarfs all of them, with its level I trauma center and massive surgical floor.

“Jesus, this place is a bloody playground, innit?” one of the interns says just as Louis joins the group. He’s a clean-shaven brunette with an Irish accent, and that’s just... odd, Louis thinks. He’d thought for sure he’d be the only intern from overseas. But then again, Harry had definitely been British as well, so maybe his assumption hadn’t been a fair one.

“You’re damn right it is,” another of them says, and gives the Irish one a good-natured nudge. This one is a girl with unruly hair and freckles and a distinctly American accent, and Louis wonders if they two of them had somehow attended the same Uni program.

Brushing his curiosity aside for the time being, he turns to the bloke next to him and gives him a nudge to get his attention. Once he has it, he tucks his hands back into the pockets of his jeans. “Have they given us our assignments yet? I was a bit late,” he explains, and his fellow intern blinks at him.

“Late for the first shift? That takes some balls, bro,” he laughs, and Louis winces. He knows as much. “Anyways, we did get our assignments. What’s your name?”

“Tomlinson,” Louis supplies, and the man nods.

“Gotcha. I’m pretty sure you’re with Spencer, then,” he says nonchalantly, back to glancing around at all of the shiny new hospital equipment with the rest of the interns the moment he’s finished speaking. Louis purses his lips at the response; he’s not all too sure this guy actually knows what he’s talking about, and the last thing he wants is to march up and introduce himself to the wrong resident. He doesn’t want to make a bigger arse of himself than he already has, but he also doesn’t have another leg to stand on, so he only nods.

He’s just about to turn and strike up a conversation with another of the lads standing nearby when a small, blonde woman approaches the group, wearing a somewhat stern expression. Her name tag reads “Dr. Harper Ellis,” and there are worry lines etched deep in the skin of her face, surrounding her eyes and mouth. It makes Louis wonder how long she’s been doing this job. Her golden-blonde hair gives way to hints of gray, which speaks to the experience she must have, since she doesn’t look much older than 50. Only upon further inspection does Louis realize that her name tag also reads “ _Chief of Surgery”,_ just below her name. He rights himself immediately.

“Good morning ladies and gents, boys and girls. And welcome to your first day as surgical interns,” she greets them. Her voice is light, but not particularly friendly or cheerful, but a few of the interns smile, even so. One of them even gives an excited hoot, and Louis is fairly sure its the Irish lad from earlier.

The chief is quick to shut down the celebration, though, and she does it with a practiced smile. “I know, I know. Very exciting. But I’d be willing to bet you’ll be singing a different song by the end of your first shift. Now, come with me,” she urges, and gestures for the group to follow as she turns to lead them down a nearby corridor. They follow obediently, and in the moment Louis can’t help but feel a bit of relief at the fact this whole thing is something of a group affair - since along with the first half hour of his shift, he’d likely missed the brief facility tour that the rest of the interns had gotten. 

Dr. Ellis stops in front of an elevator at the end of the hall and hits a button, bringing the lift to their floor. She waves them inside as the doors open up, and once the lot of them are crowded into the relatively small, square space, she steps inside as well. The next button she hits illuminates to emphasize the number, and it’s then that Louis’s heart rabbits in his chest, because if he remembers the directory he’d seen on his way in correctly, the fourth flour is the _O.R._ floor.

And… and they’re not going to observe a procedure _now_ , are they? Surely that’s more of a second day type of ordeal. The elevator carries them up, up, up, regardless of the white noise clouding Louis’s mind, and soon enough, they stop. The lift’s doors ease open with a soft ‘whoosh’, and the moment they do, he _knows_ this must be the surgical floor. A light draft springs in through the doors, and the air is distinctly cool. The smell of it is sterile, even more so than downstairs in the ER. It’s unmistakeable, even though he’s never set foot in an O.R. before, and it sends a chill of excitement up his spine.

The other interns begin chattering immediately, talking amongst themselves. They ask each other the same questions Louis has asked himself - are they about to see an actual procedure? The blood, the guts, the whole shebang? Should surgical interns even be allowed within 100 feet of an operating table on their first day? Does that even make sense?

Before the conversation can get very far, though, they’re being led down the hall and toward a door marked with black text that reads _Operating Room #4._ Louis holds his breath, hands balled into tight fists at his sides. The previous night’s cheap beer and tequila shots certainly hadn’t prepared him for this. He’s far too hungover. Thankfully, he doesn’t have too long to think about it before Dr. Ellis is pushing the door to O.R. 4 open and gesturing for them to file into the scrub room. Some of the interns rush forward while others shy toward the back of the group, and in the midst of the excitement, Louis ends up shuffled toward the front of the group.

Once he gathers the courage to look up through the scrub room window, his heart rate slows. There’s a collective groan of disappointment from the interns who’d been expecting to see a living, breathing human body split open on the O.R. table, because through the scrub room window, it’s obvious that the O.R. is empty. Louis shakes his head at that, kicking himself for getting so worked up; none of them had been given sterile gear. They were all in street clothes, and it was their first day, for God’s sake. _Of course_ they weren’t observing a procedure today.

The chief smiles at the group, shaking her head in quiet amusement as she leads them through another door and into the empty operating room. “It’s good to see so much optimism in this group. And rest assured, you will eventually get to see a real-life operation - some of you as soon as tomorrow,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches the interns split off from the group and wander into the O.R., one by one. “But for the time being, I want you to take a step out of your own shoes. Look up into the gallery, and think for a second about how all of your patients are going to be feeling.”

As soon as the chief instructs them to do so, Louis glances up toward the gallery, and immediately upon doing so, feels just a little more self conscious about his general composure this morning. There are at least a dozen doctors sitting up in the gallery, some with smiles on their faces and some talking amongst themselves. Some look to be surveying them, though, their expressions stern, and it makes Louis feel just a bit claustrophobic - like a a caught fish trapped behind the glass at an aquarium. “Every patient who comes through your O.R. will be looking up into that same gallery feeling naked, and exposed, and completely dependent on _you_. The surgical program is a competition in itself, and it _will_ be cutthroat. Your classmates are your competition, now, and it’s an unspoken truth that you _will_ have to fight to make it through this program. So you’re going to need to carry that optimism you have now with you for as long as you possibly can. But while you’re doing all of that, I want you to keep this in mind as well.”

Louis hums as the chief finishes her speech. It’s a very good point, he thinks, considering the reason he had found himself going to med school in the first place. Surgery _is_ cutthroat, but he knows already that he never wants to have anything but his patients’ best interest at the forefront of his mind. He’d spent his childhood listening to his mum’s stories about the interns in her department and all of their shenanigans, and he’s glad that Dr. Ellis had chosen to emphasize patient care over everything else.

“I wish you all the best of luck, of course - I hope each and every one of you makes it out of this and into the specialty of your dreams. But for the time being, keep your head in the game here and now. You’ve all got a very long road ahead of you and I expect nothing but the best,” the chief finishes, nodding her head as the majority of the group finish their walk about the room and gather round again. Some nod their heads cordially, and some even give a quiet round of applause, but Louis just smiles and laughs quietly.

The day had gotten off to a rough start, sure - what with the hangover and the tardiness due to the hangover and the fact that he’d had to politely kick a beautiful boy out of his apartment this morning in favor of going to work. But there’s a swell of excitement in his gut as he glances around, taking in the reactions of his peers. A moment later he turns his attention on the gallery full of attendings and residents, and smiles at them as well. He’d had a rough morning, sure, and he definitely has a long, _long_ , way to go, but he can’t help but feel that, right here, in this moment, he’s made it.

-

“I can’t fucking _wait_ ,” one of the interns exclaims, a skip in his step as they file into the locker room. As luck would have it, the chief had told them that they were to find their way back to the lockers following their brief trip to the O.R. floor. They’d been instructed to change into the scrubs that they would find there, and told that someone would come by shortly and direct them to their residents - which meant that unless there had been some kind of formal sign in at the start of the day, Louis’s resident likely wouldn’t have any idea that he’d been late this morning. He’s not sure he could have gotten any luckier, if he’s honest; the last thing he wanted was to get off on the wrong foot with his superiors straight away.

“Would you cool it already, Irish?” another of his peers - the girl with the unruly hair and the freckles - says. Louis snorts.

“C’mon, Chels! Can you really blame me? We were just inside of an _O.R.,_ ” the Irish one proclaims, and the girl scoffs.

“Yeah, genius, an _empty_ O.R. Not much there to work yourself up over, is there?” she says, and her friend grunts.

“Always such a buzzkill, Chels, really,” he sighs, reaching to ruffle her hair a moment later. She immediately squawks and bats his hand away, huffing as she straightens her scrubs.

Louis shakes his head at the pair of them, a smile on his face as he watches them interact. They’re almost like siblings, he thinks, and it reminds him of his sisters and brother back home.

“I think he’s right, if I’m honest,” he speaks up, grinning when the Irish lad and his friend turn to look his way. “We have every reason to be excited. And an O.R. is an O.R., anyways,” he reasons, lifting one shoulder in a half-arsed shrug before removing his button up shirt and replacing it with the light blue scrub top that had been waiting for him in his assigned locker. “Besides, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t have shit yourself if we had walked into that room and there had been a body open on that table. I don’t think any of us would actually have been prepared for that.”

For a split second or two, the both of them seem to be stunned into silence. It doesn’t last long, however, as soon enough the Irish one is laughing again, loud and brilliant, and reaching to clap Louis on the shoulder. “Ya see? This one knows what it’s all about,” he says, and Louis can’t help but be amused at the look “Chels” gives them. She looks both annoyed and defeated, arms crossed over her chest as she rolls her eyes at them.

“Yeah, well,” she mutters, turning back toward her locker to collect her white coat.

Louis chuckles, then, raising an eyebrow as he turns to Irish, as he’d been dubbed by his friend. “Ray of sunshine, isn’t she?” he says with a smirk, and Irish lets out a bellowing laugh once again.

“Oh, Chelsea is always a hoot, mate. You’ll get used to her in time,” he says, taking a seat next to Louis and leaning over to retie one of his sneakers. He straightens up a moment later, flashing Louis a smile as he straightens his coat. “The name’s Niall, by the way. What’s yours, and who’re you assigned to? It’d be kind of nice to have another lad from out of the states in my group. I thought for sure it’d just be me,” Irish - or Niall, rather - says, and Louis nods his agreement.

“Louis. Nice to meet you, mate,” he says, and extends his hands for Niall to shake. “And I’ve got Spencer, I think.”

Niall lights up at that, grinning as he socks Louis’s shoulder happily. “Sick! I’ve got Spencer, too. Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, then,” he laughs, and Louis has to admit he’s a bit relieved to have Niall in his group. The lad seems to have an infectiously optimistic attitude, and he knows for certain that he’s going to need to milk that for all it’s worth if he’s going to make it out of intern year alive.

He’s about to respond, to say something about how they may as well get familiar sooner than later, when a tall, balding man with dark skin and what seems to be a permanent crease in his brow enters the room, and any and all conversation screeches to a halt.

The man blinks at them, looking about as impressed as a lazy house cat would be by a pack of excitable puppies. Like the chief, it’s obvious he’s been doing this job for many, many years - the difference is that this man looks (and acts) like he’s been worn down by the stress of it all. He shakes his head and sighs, the crease in his brow deepening as he glances down at the clipboard in his hands.“Nice to see you’re all as attentive as ever. Keep that up and the residents will be sick of you before the first shift ends,” the man mutters, and Louis bites back a scoff. Niall seems to sense his amusement, and leans to give him a friendly nudge. Louis smiles.

“Gonzales, Lloyd, Bowen, Peterson,” the man calls out, then, and the four interns he’d named hesitantly move forward from their places. Louis is surprised to find out that Chelsea, Niall’s friend, is one of them. He’d thought for sure that the pair of them would have been in the same group. “You’re assigned to Dr. Capshaw, end of the hall.”

Things continue that way for a bit - the man at the head of the group reading off names and interns scurrying off in whichever direction he points them. As it turns out, Louis’s group is one of the last to be named off, and by the time he hears his name called, he’s fairly certain he knows which of the interns he’s going to be grouped with. He thinks he’s seen a few of them before; he’d gone to the welcome mixer that had been thrown for the interns the previous night, after all, but (obviously) he hadn’t stuck around long enough to have actually exchanged words with any of them. Even when he’d worked at local market back in Doncaster he’d never been one for formal (or non-formal) work events, and that certainly hadn’t changed with his move overseas. 

“Tomlinson, Horan, Palomo, Payne, Lane,” their exasperated flight director calls out, and Louis straightens his clothing and stands from his seat, Niall at his side. He finds it curious that there are five of them, where every other group had consisted of four people - but then, he supposes, it could be as simple as there being an odd number of interns. “The five of you are with Dr. Spencer. She’s at the nurses’ station. Best of luck.”

Clipboard-man waves them off without so much as a glance in their general direction, and with that, Louis’s group shuffles together in a cluster at the door. He’s not entirely sure where to find the nurses’ station, so he opts to follow Niall; the lad seems to know what’s going on and where they need to be for the most part, anyhow. They don’t make it much further than the the locker room’s door, though, before Niall is stopping to introduce himself _and_ Louis to the other interns. Louis smiles inwardly - at least he knows that one of the lot of them is going to be friendly with him.

“Nice to meet ya! My name is Niall and this is me new mate, Lou,” he greets the group, chipper as ever. The other three interns initially seem a bit taken aback, but a moment later one of them - a lad with broad shoulders, a buzzcut, and warm, brown eyes - smiles at the pair of them and nods his greeting.

“Good to meet you both,” he says, and extends his hand to Niall, and then to Louis. “I’m Liam Payne.”

Louis finds himself surprised, once again, when Liam speaks and a thick English accent comes out. Well, English with a touch of Californian, maybe, but English nonetheless. The slight American drawl hints at where Liam may have spent his time studying, and Louis thinks he would like to talk to the lad about that, sometime. He’d spent a small amount of his academic career in the states as well, after all, long before he’d ever decided that he was going to be committing four years to medical school.

It looks as though Liam is about to say something else, but before he gets the opportunity Niall cuts him off, laughing happily once again. “I’m beginning to think they’ve done this on purpose,” he says, and gestures to Louis. “Tommo’s a brit as well. Bit more northern than you, though, I reckon.”

Liam blinks at that, looking a bit surprised as his gaze flits to Louis. “No kidding?” he starts, and Louis smiles sheepishly.

“Doncaster,” he clarifies, and Liam lights up, then.

“Wolverhampton!” he exclaims, looking absolutely delighted, and - okay. It’s definitely fair. Wolverhampton and Doncaster aren’t any more than two hours apart. They’ll certainly have plenty to talk about in their downtime.

“Great, we get to put up with the boysclub all year,” one of the women (who Louis had temporarily forgotten were also a part of their group) speaks up, finally. She has her arms crossed over her chest and she’s smiling a smug smile at the second female intern, who looks more fascinated with the three of them than anything else. There’s a recognizable gleam of infatuation in her eyes as glances at the first girl, and then turns back to look intently at each of them.

“I mean… sure, but at least we get to appreciate the accents, right?” she says, pushing her thick-framed glasses up her nose and smiling a sheepish smile. Louis has to fight the urge to roll his eyes; he’d always known that he’d have to put up with the unfortunate fascination that most American girls have with the British accent, but he’d certainly hoped that it wouldn’t be a factor with his coworkers. Evidently he’d been wrong.He wonders how the poor girl would react if he happened to break the news to her that he didn’t have any romantic interest in women, American or otherwise.

“Don’t get your hopes up, love,” he says instead. The girl doesn’t quit staring though - only tilts her head and gives him an odd look as she tucks one hand into the pocket of her coat and brushes her auburn hair back with the other. Louis sighs at that.

“ _Anyways_ ,” the other woman - a thin girl with olive skin and bleached-blonde hair - drawls, and Louis snorts. It certainly doesn’t seem that she cares quite as much about ogling them as her friend does, and on one hand, he’s grateful for it. “My name is Anna Palomo, and the four of you are going to be spending a lot of time tailing me this next year.”

Louis raises an eyebrow at the harsh declaration, and wonders in passing if perhaps Anna and the other female intern aren’t as close as he might have assumed. He shrugs it off, though, and makes a mental note that if there’s going to be a shark in the group, it’ll more than likely be Anna. He’s heard plenty of stories about surgical interns throughout the years from his mum, and the way she’d always told them, there was always at least one person per group determined to outshine their peers. Of course, all of those stories had come from Doncaster, where the majority of med students were lucky to receive a residency at all, so he can only assume that the same would be true of a hospital with such a prestigious surgical program.

“Not bloody likely, darling. None of us spent four years with our noses to the grind in med school for nothing,” Niall pipes up, and there’s a glint in his eyes as he moves to step past the girls and walk out of the locker room doors. Liam and the girls follow after him, and Louis brings up the tail of the group, happy to hang back and watch them interact for a bit.

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re all going to be hard-pressed if you want to come anywhere _close_ to keeping up with me this year. I’ve wanted this career since I was 5 years old and I have no plans of letting anything stand in my way,” Anna goes on, keeping her expression hard. Louis only smirks, though; he knows that she’s doing her very best to come off intimidating, but he wonders if she’s aware of the softness in her blue eyes. While her words certainly give the illusion of arrogance, the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes give way to the the same nervousness that they’re all bound to be feeling, whether it comes right off the bat or doesn’t hit until a couple of days in. Louis doesn’t have it in himself to judge her, really — if he’s entirely honest, he wishes he could share with her the amount of pressure he feels. After all, he hadn’t changed his major two years into uni for no reason.

Niall’s laughter is what brings him back to reality, and he smiles softly despite the fact that he’s definitely missed a good bit of the conversation. A quick glance about at his surroundings lets him know that they’ve just entered the ER, and about 15 feet ahead there’s a relatively large station with 5 or 6 nurses bustling about behind the counter. One of them is holding what looks to be a patient’s chart, looking carefully over each detail, and another pair are chatting animatedly about the patients they had cared for earlier in the day. The remaining few only spend a moment or two at their station before they’re off in various directions once more, charts and other supplies piled against their chests. It’s a scene Louis is familiar with, definitely - and probably the first comfortably familiar thing he’s come across all morning, if he’s honest. That’s what happens when you grow up with a single mum who works as a nurse, after all.

Just a few feet away from the nurse’s station, Louis can see the woman who he assumes to be Dr. Spencer.She’s the only one in the immediate area wearing a white coat and scrubs identical to the interns’, firstly, and secondly, it looks as though she’d been pulled into a consult with a patient. The patient is a young boy who looks no older than ten, and he’s standing with his parents in the ER. Dr. Spencer is kneeling down on the floor in front of him, and Louis finds himself softening at that - he’s always liked seeing adults (and doctors in particular) take the time to get on the level of the children they interact with, and he’s glad that his assigned resident seems to have that particular quality. He’d also be lying if he said he didn’t hope that it might mean he’d get to spend a little extra time with younger patients, but that’s neither here nor there.

“D’ya think that’s her, then?” Niall asks, relatively quietly. The group spreads out a bit as they approach the nurses’ station - so that they don’t look _too_ cozy with one another, Louis thinks. The competitive world of a surgical intern only allows for so much camaraderie, and clearly no one in their group wants to be seen as someone lacking drive. Friends can mean weakness, after all - Louis had learned that the first time he had ever watched Spider-Man as a young lad, and while it hasn’t had much relevance in his life up until now, it’s certainly a concept that carries over into a field as ambitious as surgery.

“That’s got to be her, right? All of the others are wearing green scrubs. Nurses’ scrubs,” the quieter of the two girls in their group reasons, keeping her voice hushed as well.

“She’s looks… nothing like I thought she would,” Liam comments, a bit out of left field, and Louis hums.

“What’d you think she was going to look like?” he asks, and the other boy turns to him and shrugs.

“I don’t know… Taller? And maybe a bit meaner-looking,” he says, but upon noticing the confused tilt of Louis’s head, he rushes to defend his opinion. “No, I just — I mean, there were all of these stories round the intern mixer, yeah? And I guess maybe it was just the residents above us trying to intimidate us, which… makes a bit of sense, I suppose. Anyways,the senior residents told the lot of us stories about how long and hard intern year was going to be, and made it very clear that we shouldn’t expect our residents to coddle us. Put a bit of an image in my mind, I reckon, and she’s—not that.”

Liam’s explanation is a bit jumbled, definitely, but Louis supposes it’s fair. He hadn’t stuck around the intern mixer long enough to hear any of the stories the residents might have told, and in this instance, he’s grateful for that. At the very least, he hadn’t spent the entirety of his night worrying about his potential resident’s demeanor, and what it would all mean for him and his first year.

He’s about to say something, to comment on how he hadn’t heard any of the stories that Liam talked about, but before he can get a word out Dr. Spencer is standing from her place and turning to face them. The young patient she had been speaking with has been ushered away by one of the nurses, and their resident’s focus is on the five of them, now. Each of the interns offer the 1st year resident polite, tight-lipped smiles as her eyes fall upon them, but her answering smile is anything but— her expression is friendly, almost soft, as she looks over each of them.

“Hello everyone,” she says, and her voice is as gentle as her smile. She doesn’t look too much older than any of them, with her stormy gray eyes and pale skin. Her hair is blonde, shoulder length and falling in loose, messy waves around her face. She reminds Louis a bit of his mum in more ways than one - most of all in the way that her presence seems to be something immediately warm and welcoming.

Each of them murmurs their own quiet hello, obviously not too sure how they’re meant to act in the presence of the woman who they’ll be reporting to for the next year of the careers. Dr. Spencer only smiles more brightly, though, laughing as she watches them try and figure out how to act.

“You don’t have to worry too much. I promise I won’t actually be torturing you, no matter what the 3rd and 4th years have told you,” she goes on, folding her arms across her chest as she takes half a step closer to them. Both of the girls smile at her, and Liam even chuckles, despite his initial hesitancy. Dr. Spencer’s general demeanor is definitely friendly, and it’s a relief to all of them, without a doubt. Just looking at the small, blonde woman, Louis doesn’t think he could think he could see her being anything but gentle with everyone she meets. She also has quite a curious accent — it sounds like something out of New York, but gives way hints of Australian, or New Zealand, perhaps. He’d like to ask her where she’s from, he thinks — but he’ll save that for a less professional setting.

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Spencer. My name is Anna — Anna Palomo,” Anna says and extends her hand to their resident, bold as the first time Louis had heard her speak. Louis mentally applauds her — he’s confident in his work and in himself, definitely, but he doesn’t think he’d have the guts to bring attention to himself the way that Anna does.

Dr. Spencer grins as accepts Anna’s handshake, and laughs again as she takes a step back and eyes the remaining four of them. “That’s more like it, ladies and gents! I know all of your names already, of course, but I appreciate the enthusiasm, Dr. Palomo.”

Niall snorts at that and Liam grins, and Anna seems to light up as Dr. Spencer refers to her as “doctor” for what’s likely the first time in her professional career. Louis doesn’t blame her a bit. He thinks he’d be just as ecstatic.

“So… where do we start?” the timid redhead in their group - the one with the glasses - pipes up, and when Dr. Spencer turns her attention on the girl, Louis swears he sees a soft blush rise to her freckled cheeks.

“That’s a fantastic question, Dr. Lane. I think a fair place to start would be to show you all around a bit while we’ve got the time, don’t you?” their resident asks. With that, the buzz of excitement finds its way back to the group easily — every one of them nods and smile eagerly. Niall looks like he can hardly contain himself, and even Dr. Lane, whose first name Louis still doesn’t know, perks up happily.

Dr. Spencer turns around, then, her white lab coat whirling along with her as she goes and making her appear all the more elegant. She gestures for them to follow her and they do so happily, shuffling along behind her like a plump of ducklings.

“Now, I _have_ promised not to torture you, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be rules to follow,” she goes on to say, raising both eyebrow as she shoots them a glance over her shoulder. They continue shuffling along, weaving between the bodies crowding the ER floor, and at first glance? It’s a bit of a mess. But even despite their resident’s running commentary, Louis can’t help but be a bit caught up in it all. All of the hustle and bustle typical of an emergency room is present, certainly, but as a surgical intern? Being at the center of it for the very first time and knowing that you’re moments away, _finally_ , from getting your hands dirty? He’d have been lying through his teeth if he’d said there wasn’t something a bit magical about that.

His attention is brought back to the tour in progress as a couple of doctors — attendings he thinks he recognizes from the OR gallery — whiz past with a gurney, and he clears his throat, smiling a small small as he brings his attention back to Dr. Spencer.

“—and these, my dears, are the on-call rooms.Take advantage of them as often as you can, because putting it kindly, you _are_ going to be the fresh meat around here! Your first shift will last 48 hours. You’re going to be on call more often than you’re not, running labs and doing the grunt work, for lack of a better term. You’re going to be the first people that the nurses page when their patient needs something. If—and _when—_ you don’t know how to give your patient what they need, I’ll step in, but otherwise? It’s trial by fire, and believe me, you’re going to end up scorched more than once _,_ ” she’s just finished saying. “If you can’t find an empty on-call room to sleep in, sleep wherever you can. Practicing medicine drowsy will land you in jail nine times out of ten.”

With that said, Louis finds himself at least a little bit grateful for the years he’d spent in med school. Between the time he’d spent studying and the time he’d spent partying, he’d certainly had his fair share of all-nighters, and it makes him wonder if the rigorous curriculum is intentional; to teach them how to function on three hours of sleep or none _before_ there are actual human lives in their hands.

As their miniature tour progresses, they move from the on-call rooms to radiology, from radiology to labs, and from labs to the ICU. Louis does his best to commit the layout of the building to memory as he goes, even if he’s positive he’s going to end up wandering the halls aimlessly at least once before the first shift ends. At the very least, he can blame the mild hangover he’s got for that. They’ve just stopped at the nurses station at the center of the intensive care unit when Dr. Spencer turns to face them once more, clapping her hands happily.

“Alright! Those are the very basics of our lovely hospital, I think — the bits that are going to get you through your first couple of days, at least. Does anyone have any questions?” she asks, all but beaming, and Louis smiles. He hadn’t expected his resident to have such an airy demeanor about her, but he doesn’t mind it, certainly - he’s probably hard enough on himself as it is. He doesn’t need any help in the criticism arena, at least not outside of the things that are actually meant to help him learn.

The group is quiet for a a good moment or two, and Louis is just about to reiterate the question Dr. Lane had asked earlier on - about their starting point - when the silence is broken by an insistent chime that comes from Dr. Spencer’s pocket. Her happy smile melts into a rather serious expression, then, as she pulls her mobile out of her pocket and gives it a once-over. She’s grinning again by the time she turns her attention back to them, and there’s something resembling wild excitement in her eyes as she takes a few steps backwards, gesturing for the interns to follow.

“Looks like the time time has come, folks. Follow me!” she exclaims, and turns to sprint down the hallway that’ll lead them back to the emergency room.There are a few startled blinks and even a surprised yelp that Louis thinks comes from Liam, but it’s not long before the five of them are sprinting after their resident, hearts racing in their chests.

“Lesson number one - we answer every page at a run! Whether it’s urgent or not, if the nurses are paging you you’ve got a patient in need, and you should be at their bedside _A_ - _S_ - _A_ - _P_ ,” Dr. Spencer shouts, and they can only nod their agreement, since none of them are quite accustomed to answering questions at a sprint. It’s only a short jaunt to the ER, and then they’re _in it;_ a group of paramedics come bustling through the sliding doors with a gurney. Two of them focus on positioning the stretcher correctly without jostling it too much. Another one is busy pumping an AMBU bag and checking the patient’s pulse every few moments, and the last of the group is holding pressure on what seems to be a nasty abdominal wound.

Even though he had chosen the in-depth side of the medical field to throw himself into, Louis can’t help but admire the agility and the grace with which the paramedics do things. If he were more of an adrenaline junky, he thinks he might have even made a decent EMT.

“Holy shit,” Niall says, breathing labored, and Louis spares a quick glance in the direction of his Irish friend. He looks just as winded as Louis feels, which is something of a relief; if they’re going to be doing this much running, he’s definitely going to need to start hitting the gym in his free time.

“It’s just—it’s a kid. It’s just a kid,” Liam murmurs, looking a bit ill, and _that_ catches Louis’s attention. His eyes are back on the patient immediately, and upon taking a closer look, he understands at once why Liam sounds so shocked.

The patient is, in fact, just a kid. Beneath the busy hands of the paramedics, he can see a very young face framed by unruly dark hair and smattered with blood that looks to have come from an open wound on the boy’s forehead. He’s wearing a tee-shirt too big for his small body and the same superman pajamas Louis’s younger brother wears. And Louis feels a bit ill himself.

They’re snapped out of their reverie as Dr. Spencer dives headfirst into the middle of the situation, whipping out her stethoscope to have a listen to the young patient’s chest before gesturing to one of the paramedics and telling him to “ _lay it on her_ ”.

“Logan Parker, 7-year-old male, severe injuries from a bicycle-versus-M.V. accident a few blocks from his house. A couple of head lacs, obvious flail chest with an open abdominal wound, and a fractured tibia,” the medic spouts off, and Dr. Spencer nods along as she flitters about, surveying the situation and the injuries she’s being told the boy has.

“Where are the parents?” she asks, sparing a glance at the paramedics as she steps in toward one end of the gurney and gestures for her shaken group of interns to do the same. Anna is the first to take a step forward, predictably, and Dr. Spencer helps her go about using her hands as a temporary splint for Rowan’s leg fracture as the EMTs go on to answer her question.

“Parents have been contacted— father was at home, mother at work. They’re probably a few minutes out,” he explains, and Dr. Spencer nods once more.

“Alright, perfect. Dr. Palomo, stay where you are, keep that fracture steady. Drs. Horan and Lane, the two of you stay here — intersect the parents, let them know we have their son and we’re doing everything we can to help him. Dr. Tomlinson, bring it in — take over for Eli, here, we need pressure on that wound until we can get him to an O.R. Dr. Payne, stay close and help us get this gurney where it needs to be,” she commands, and they do exactly as she says, shell-shock and queasy stomachs aside. She sounds a bit more like the drill sergeant the lot of them had probably expected, now, but not a single one of them pays it any mind; chances are they’d all still be standing around slack-jawed and pale-faced had they not been whipped into action.

Louis’s hands shake as he rounds the gurney and takes over for Eli the medic, pressing his fingertips into the makeshift gauze-dressing that had been used to control the bleeding. He can feel the boy’s abdomen give way beneath his hands and he falters at that, nervous at the idea of making the boy’s injuries worse. The blood that oozes up through the bandages when he lets up on the pressure tells him that he doesn’t quite have a choice, though, so he holds steady, and holds his breath the entire way to the O.R. floor.

Everything from that point on passes in a blur of activity and orders given by Dr. Spencer — “ _don’t jostle the leg too much, Palomo, we can’t set the fracture just yet”, “breathe, Tomlinson, come on, this job is a marathon, not a sprint”, “you’re doing wonderfully, Dr. Payne, just don’t vomit and you’re golden”._ The moment they reach the O.R. floor a group of scrub nurses take over for Anna and Louis, and the three of them are shuffled aside as Dr. Spencer continues to follow the gurney, ordering the nurses to page the pediatric attending on-call, whose name Louis doesn’t catch.

They all stand there for a moment, then, not looking at anything in particular once the Dr. Spencer and the patient are out of sight.

Liam is the first to speak.

“That was—that was just—“ he stammers, swallowing thickly.

“Terrifying,” Louis finishes for him, still feeling somewhat light-headed as he spares a glance at his hands, which he realizes for the first time are still stained with the patient’s blood. He wonders errantly if he should have thrown gloves on - if it would have done any good. Anna is suspiciously quiet where she stands, her bleached-blonde hair falling into her face as she nods her agreement.

The three of them don’t actually move until Dr. Spencer comes sprinting back down the hallway, half-dressed in surgical garb and smiling at them.

“Sorry about that, folks. The ER is nothing if not hectic,” she says, a bit out of breath as she looks them over. Louis wonders if they all look as nauseous as he feels. “Now, I’m going to be in surgery with this one for quite a while, so as for you all:Dr. Payne, Dr. Palomo. Why don’t the pair of you head down to the clinic and find out of they need any extra hands? And I know, the clinic isn’t quite as exciting as all of this, but it _is_ your first day. We’re going to work up to all of the blood and guts and scalpels, believe me,” she reassures them, and Anna and Liam nod their heads as they turn to make for the elevators once more, leaving Louis alone with Dr. Spencer. “Dr. Tomlinson, go back down to the ER and find Dr. Lane and Dr. Horan. Find out if the family has made it in yet and what information they’ve been given.”

Louis nods obediently, and smiles through a quiet “ _yes ma’am”._ He’s about to turn and head for the stairs - because he doesn’t quite feel like he can stand still right now, not even for an elevator ride - when Dr. Spencer calls after him.

“And Louis,” she says, and when he turns to face her, there’s a sympathetic gleam in her eyes. “Make sure you wash your hands, love. The parents will always have a hard time seeing past the blood on your hands, if and when you speak to them.”

Louis swallows hard at that and nods his head. He can safely say that he understands their resident’s advice all too well.

“Will do, Dr. Spencer,” he says, hands clasped before him and held carefully away from his scrubs. He waits until she nods her head and turns to sprint back to the O.R. before he heads for the stairs, breathing deep as his brain scratches and repeats, going over and over and over a loop of “ _IcandothisIcan’tdothisIcandothisIcan’tdothisIcanIcan’tIcan”_ as he jogs back down to the ground level of the hospital.

He makes sure he hits a bathroom to wash his hands on the way, and he doesn’t think his stomach stops churning the whole time. He’d been thinking about how happy he was to finally be in the game earlier, to be getting his hands dirty, but he certainly doesn’t think he’d meant it quite so literally.And he can’t help but think about the reason he’s doing this at all as he dries his hands off with a paper towel and goes on his way.

By the time he makes it back to the emergency room his head is a bit clearer and he feels just a little less sick, even despite all the chaos still surrounding him. His hands are clean now, at least, and he’s not at the _center_ of the chaos, and he tries his best to put a smile on his face as he makes for the waiting area, where he thinks the little boy’s parents must be by now. He’s not sure Niall and Dr. Lane will still be there, but he can worry about them later, he’s sure.

With a little help from the nurses, he heads in the direction of a good-sized area filled with uncomfortable-looking chairs. It takes him a bit of time to determine which group might be the one here for his patient - he thinks he call the boy _his_ patient, now - but it becomes obvious after a once-over or two of the few people actually waiting this time of morning. There’s an older couple - much older, by the look of them - who look antsy, and Louis decides that they aren’t as likely to be his kid’s parents so much as his grandparents. The next few people are a couple of young kids who don’t look any older than Louis’s eldest younger sister, and the whole group is female, so he rules them out easily. There are a few stragglers here and there, folks of the right age group who are sitting alone, but almost all of them look much too calm to be the parents of a boy who’d just come through the emergency room with what was basically a hole in his gut.

It’s not until he singles out a couple in the far right corner of the room that he _knows._ This couple looks like they’ve just sat down, fresh out of the chaos that Louis had just experienced himself. The mother has dried tears on her cheeks and can’t seem to stop wringing her hands, and the father doesn’t look panicked so much as he looks defeated - like he’s doing his best to prepare himself for the worst with his hands fisted at his sides and a blank stare into the middle of the room. He doesn’t see Dr. Lane or Niall anywhere nearby, but he makes his way to the couple’s corner of the room regardless, breathing deep as he feels every set of eyes in the room focus in on him.

“I’m looking for Logan Parker’s parents,” he asks in a soft voice, and the couple he’d been eyeing look his way immediately. In a moment’s time they’re out of they’re seats and the mother has closed the distance between herself and Louis, looking frantic as ever.

“Yes, Logan, that’s our—that’s us, we’re his parents,” she clarifies, and Louis offers her a gentle smile. He’s familiar with frantic mothers to say the least, and he thinks (and hopes) he’ll be very good at this part of the job.

“Hello, Mrs. Parker,” he starts, and nods toward the husband as he makes his way to his wife’s side. “I was just up on the O.R. floor with your son. They’ve sent me down to make sure you know that he’s in good hands, and that they’re doing everything they can for him.”

He keeps his voice level as he speaks, shamelessly imitating all of the doctors he’s ever heard speak to a patient’s family - his family, specifically - this way. He’s had plenty of practice, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of himself for his impression - especially when he sees both of the parents take a breath and nod their heads.

“Okay, that’s… that’s good, I suppose. Thank you,” Mrs. Parker says, and Mr. Parker even offers him a smile.

“Better news than we got from those other two doctors, anyways,” he says, shaking his head and sighing. Louis bites back a hum as he remembers how pale his fellow interns had looked when Logan had come into the E.R., and errantly hopes that their interaction hadn’t gone _too_ terribly. 

“We’ll be sure to keep you updated,” he reassures them, and even takes a moment to place a reassuring hand on the mother’s shoulder. The both of them nod at him and turn to head for their seats, and Louis takes another deep breath, feeling rather proud of himself as he turns to makes his way out of the waiting area and back into the E.R. He’s smiling as he thinks of what he’ll tell his group; he won’t gloat, obviously, but he had done _well_. All things considered, it had been a fantastic first interaction, and he can’t wait to get the others’ take on it all.

He’s just made a plan to head over to the clinic to look for them, but he doesn’t make it much further than the waiting area’s doors before he’s stopped in his tracks for the second time that day. Someone else comes hurrying through the door just as he attempts to pull it open, and in their rush, they crash face-first into him. He splutters and stumbles a bit, but doesn’t fall—mostly thanks to a pair of hands that have come up to his shoulders to steady him.

He doesn’t think anything of the encounter at first; he plans to apologize and be on his way back to his group, but he’s caught off guard the moment he looks up.

The first thing he notices is the pink - _baby_ pink - scrub cap the person he’s bumped into is wearing, and it brings an odd sense of deja vu. He doesn’t realize why that is until he notices that mess of curls sticking out from beneath the scrub cap, and green, _green_ eyes - the same green eyes he’d left in his apartment this morning.

“…Louis?”

“What the fuck?”

They speak at the same time, and Louis blinks, startled. Harry smiles, though, a genuine smile, and shakes his head a bit. His hands are still on Louis’s shoulders, and Louis’s heart skips a beat at that.

“You work _here_?” he asks, looking absolutely delighted, and Louis swallows hard.

“ _You_ work here,” he echoes, still in the middle of processing it. Harry doesn’t seem to be having any trouble with it at all, though - he only grins and nods his head.

“I do. I’m the on-call pediatric surgeon here,” he clarifies, looking rather proud. Louis, however, feels a bit sick.

“You work _here_ ,” he says again, softer, and Harry snorts. He takes a half a step closer, and Louis can’t breathe.

“Yeah, love. You’re not one of the patients, are you? You look a bit ill,” he says, smiling a gentle smile and giving Louis’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. Louis blinks, again, and shakes his head.

“No, I—I’m sorry. I just,” he stammers, shaking his head as he takes a step back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” he says, and wastes no time in brushing past Harry and out the door.

“Louis, wait—“ he hears Harry say, but he just shakes his head and walks on.

“Update his parents, they’re worried sick,” he says back, and doesn’t stop walking until he’s out the door, through the E.R., and halfway to the clinic. He pauses just outside of the clinic’s door, feeling a touch dizzy - like this morning’s hangover has come back to bite him in the arse.

Harry, beautiful Harry from the bar works _here_. Quirky, kind Harry who has odd tattoos and had tried to make him breakfast this morning is his _boss._ He’s screwed. Royally screwed. 


	2. Casual Affair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might have taken me a full two months to crank out, but I did it. I hope you're ready for some true-to-Grey's cliches, because this chapter is packed full of them and I couldn't be more proud of it.

_"Stay for as long as you have time, so the mess that we'll become leaves something to talk about."_

_-[Panic! at the Disco](https://open.spotify.com/track/2zkXavDV9dw8uR0pfhsBt2?si=w5YHKfo3S9q-rvuMxwWmSg)_

☂

The second he steps foot in the clinic, he’s intercepted by Liam and Anna, who are both full of questions. Questions about the little boy, questions about Dr. Spencer and what had happened since they’d been sent to the clinic to take care of sprained ankles and flu shots – questions that, in the moment, Louis just doesn’t have any answers for.

“What happened to the kid? Is he alright? What did Dr. Spencer say?”

“Did you get to scrub in? Do they need any more hands up there? They aren’t done _already,_ are they?”

They come at him like a pair of vultures scavenging for bones, and for a good couple of seconds the best he can manage is a quick shake of his head. It’s all just a bit too much, right now – right now, while he’s still trying to process the fact that his one-night-stand is at the opposite end of the hospital, updating his patient’s parents. He shakes himself out of his stupor a moment later, though, and manages a smile at his peers.

“I didn’t get to scrub in,” he starts, and snorts at the way they both deflate – like a couple of pouting children. “And I don’t know what’s going on, now. All I did was talk to the parents.”

It’s funny, he has to stop and think; before he’d run into Harry, he’d been on his way here with the intention of gloating. He’d been so excited about his first interaction with a patient’s loved ones. It hadn’t been _all_ he had done. He sighs.

“Damn. I thought for sure we’d be on that case,” Anna says, looking genuinely disappointed by the lack of instructions from Dr. Spencer. Louis only shrugs.

“Getting assigned to a trauma that big would’ve been a bit too lucky for our first shift, I reckon,” Liam interjects with a smile. Anna grunts.

“I’m not too sure a battered kid is something we should be referring to as ‘lucky’,” Louis points out, and he can’t help but smile when Liam splutters in his hurry to correct himself.

“That’s not—no, you know that’s not what I meant!” he insists, and Louis laughs happily despite himself. When he meets Anna’s eyes, she’s smiling as well. “He wasn’t lucky, that’s not—I meant _we_ were lucky, because we’d get to learn—“ he goes on stammering, and Louis grins.

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that,” Anna adds, and Louis smiles. It’s good to know that despite her tough-guy act, they’ve got a very similar sense of humor.

Liam gives up trying to defend himself eventually, and when he throws his hands up andturns to find his way back into the clinic, he turns to Anna.

“Did either of you see Niall? Or Dr. Lane? I gathered from the parents that they’d already been updated, but I haven’t seen the two of them since the E.R.,” he explains, and crosses his arms over his chest as he does so. He isn’t sure where he’s meant to be as of now, and he thinks he could probably use a bit of Niall’s banter, all things considered. He picks at a loose thread on the sleeve of his coat while he waits for Anna’s answer – anything to keep his restless hands busy.

“I haven’t seen them since the E.R. either,” she says, and gives him a look when he drops his arms to his sides dejectedly and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “And her name is Olivia – Dr Lane, I mean. Just so you know. You look off.”

The way that she points out the state of him so bluntly makes him wince, but he chooses not to acknowledge it – instead, he puts on a cheeky smile and tucks his hands into his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting any more. “Oh, _Olivia,_ is it?” he teases, and laughs when Anna’s eyes go wide. There’s a touch of pink to the girl’s cheeks, and she grumbles as she turns to pick a chart up off of the counter.

“Shut up,” she snaps, and Louis can’t help but grin as he side-steps to give her a friendly nudge. He’d caught her off-guard, it seems, and he’s glad to have found a chink in her armor. He’s going to need it, after all, if he’s going to have any hope of keeping the attention off of himself.

“Takes one to know one, love,” he says, but Anna just rolls her eyes at him and goes for another chart, which she shoves into his hands.

“Yeah, well mind your own business and take care of this patient. The clinic has been swamped and she needs her ankle splinted,” she says without looking at him, and soon enough, she’s off in the same direction Liam had gone. Louis shakes his head and smiles, knowing already that he’ll be giving Anna an absolutely unfathomable amount of shit for going and developing an immediate crush on the first girl she meets. 

God knows, he’d have been laughing at his own situation, too – that was, if he hadn’t found out immediately that Harry was essentially his boss—no, his boss’s boss. He sighs at that, and proceeds to ask the nearest nurse where he can find the patient he’s meant to be seeing. If there’s any hope in salvaging this shift, he’s got to keep working. 

-

He’s just finished taking care of the girl with the sprained ankle when Niall and Olivia make a reappearance. He’s just returned the chart to the nurse, and he’s getting ready to go and find the girl some crutches to take home with her when Niall comes marching up to him, looking just as frazzled as he had in the emergency room.  He has Olivia in tow, and she looks a bit more collected, but Dr. Lane seems to be a reserved person in general, so Louis doesn’t read too far into that. He puts his focus on his Irish friend (not that he has much of a choice, anyways – since Niall makes a point of taking him by the shoulders and giving him a brief shake as soon as he gets within arm’s reach).

“Tommo, you’re not going to believe this,” he says, and Louis snorts.

“What, did you get to scrub in and observe a procedure or summat? I haven’t seen either of you since we took that kid up to surgery,” he prods, but Niall only shakes his head.

“Oh, no. Better than that,” he starts, blinking as he rocks back on his heels and folds his arms over his chest. “Or worse? I don’t think I’ve decided which yet.”

Olivia laughs softly from a few feet behind Niall, and Louis raises an eyebrow at the both of them.

“Spit it out then, lad,” he says, mirroring Niall and folding his arms across his chest as he looks at the lad expectantly. He looks like he’s caught between passing out and doing some kind of happy-dance, and Louis can’t even begin to fathom what could have happened to prompt such a response from someone who was so generally happy-go-lucky.

“Liv and I were down in the pit, yeah? After we talked to the kid’s parents we got picked up by a couple of attendings to tag along on consults. Boring consults. Nothing interesting,” he explains, shaking his head. “Anyways, in between the boring consults we heard the attendings talking, and one of ‘em mentioned something about an ‘intern appy’.”

Louis blinks at that. “And?” he urges. Niall snorts.

 _“_ Since I think it’s safe to assume none of us _need_ an appy, one of us is getting a procedure today, mate,” he clarifies, and the nausea Louis had been feeling earlier makes a startling comeback.

“ _Today?_ What?” he asks, pale-faced and bewildered. “Are you sure they said it would be _today_?”

“Well, not exactly,” Niall says, and Louis groans aloud and reaches to shove him at the shoulder.

“You twat! If they didn’t say one of us was getting a procedure _today_ why would you tell me they did?” he says with a laugh. Olivia smiles and adjusts her glasses, then, as she takes a step forward to stand beside Niall.

“That’s what I told him,” she says, and Louis rolls his eyes. Niall remains insistent, though, shaking his head as he looks between Louis and Olivia like the fboth of them are completely missing the point.

“Why would they have been talking about it _today_ if it wasn’t happening today?” he insists.

“I don’t know how to break this to you, Niall, but people occasionally talk to each other about their plans for the future,” Louis says, and smiles when Olivia snickers. Niall groans and throws his hands up, then, clearly exasperated.

“I just wanted to let you lot know that you might want to be prepared! Sue me,” he counters, and Louis laughs happily. If Anna was going to be the shark of their group, it was looking like Niall was going to be – well, whatever the opposite of a shark was, looking out for everyone in the group.

He’s about to give the lad some more grief, but before he has the opportunity, the temporary pager that he’d been given along with his scrubs beeps and vibrates insistently. He startles at the suddenness of it, and when he glances at the little device to see that he’s being paged to the ICU, he blinks.

“What’s all that about?” Niall asks, and he fish-mouths for a moment as he meets his friend’s gaze.

“I—uh. I guess I’m being paged to the ICU,” he says dumbly, and shakes his head as he glances at Olivia and Niall’s pagers, both of which are silent.

“Well, I reckon you better go then, mate,” Niall says, and Louis clears his throat and nods. He hadn’t anticipated he’d be put back on Logan’s case at all — let alone that he’d be put back on it _alone._ It blindsides him, definitely, and he finds himself feeling a bit like his shoes have been duct-taped to the floor as he stands there, considering his next move.

“Yeah, yeah, I just—okay,” he says, and shakes himself out of his stupor. He’s got to get going — he can’t have it looking like he’s ignoring his pages. He looks to Niall. “Can you get this girl some crutches, then? She’s over there, in bed, uh — bed 3. I just splinted her ankle.”

Niall nods, and with that he waves Louis off. “Don’t worry, I’ve got your girl covered, Tommo. Go, get in on that trauma,” he says, and Louis can’t help but smile at that. He thinks that when all of this is over with, the first shift and everything that comes with it, that he’ll have to invest some real time in making a friend out of Niall.

“Thanks, Nialler,” he says as he backs toward the clinic doors. His smile grows as he gestures toward his sprained ankle’s bed. “Have fun with her, by the way. She’s a pageant queen—spent the entire time I was taking care of her ankle asking when she could get out of here and if she could still wear heels with the splint.”

The appalled groan that the story gets from Niall makes him laugh wholeheartedly, and he lets his amusement at his friend’s disdain overshadow the anxiety he feels as he turns and heads for the nearest stairwell. The pediatric ICU is on the third floor, after all, and he knows that it’ll do him some good to run of some of the nerves that he’s feeling.

He’s got to be on top of his game, because he’s got a _case_ , now. And god, he can’t help but grin at that.

-

When he gets to the correct floor (which takes a moment or two, because hey—he doesn’t know layout of the place by heart yet), Dr. Spencer meets him at the nurse’s station. She’s all smiles as she catches him by the arm and hands him the patient’s chart, and as she turns to walk him toward what Louis assumes will be the little boy’s room, she laughs happily.

“I’ve got to say, Tomlinson, in all the time I’ve been here I’ve never seen an attending request an intern by name before,” she says, and Louis blinks. He hasn’t interacted with any of the attendings yet as far as he’s aware, unless—

“Oh, um,” he starts, not sure what he’s meant to say. What _could_ he say, in this particular situation? _“Oh, right, the attending surgeon on this case happens to be the guy I brought home from the bar and slept with last night”_. Yeah, right. Like that wouldn’t get him fired from his shiny new job in a heartbeat.

“Dr. Styles is our head of pediatric surgery,” Dr. Spencer goes on, and by that point, Louis is only half-listening. It doesn’t take long for the excitement he’d been feeling about being on this case to dwindle; he’d never stopped to think that _this_ might have been the reason he’d been chosen over the rest of the interns, and it’s disheartening to say the least. “And you must be doing something right, because he told me he’d run into you downstairs and that he wanted to make sure you stayed on Logan’s case.”

Louis scoffs privately at that. As much as he’d like to think that Harry had requested him because of the way he’d handled Logan’s parents, he knows better already. And he wishes he didn’t, truly, because he’d have a hell of a lot more confidence in the job he was doing were that the case. Realistically, he just feels like a booty call, and that’s just… demeaning.

Before he has the time to properly process the whole situation, they’ve entered Logan’s room, and standing around the bed are both of the little boy’s parents, another doctor he hadn’t seen before, and Harry—no, Dr. Styles. They look toward Dr. Spencer, first, and then toward him. The range of emotions Louis can see in one person to the next is dizzying; the parents both look equal parts expectant and hopeful. The unnamed doctor looks a whole lot more skeptical of his presence than anything else. And Dr. Styles — well, Dr. Styles is smiling at him, and it’s much too private for his liking. He clears his throat and tucks the chart he’d been handed beneath his arm, doing his best not to make eye contact as he stands quietly beside Dr. Spencer.

“Alright, now that everyone is here, let’s get you all filled in,” Harry starts, and turns his gaze back on Mr. and Mrs. Parker. Louis makes a point of keeping his eyes on the patient, both because he knows he doesn’t have an ounce of authority in this room and because the last thing he needs today is to tip his resident off to the fact that there could be any sort of something going on between he and Dr. Styles. He won’t have that, so he makes a point of committing the details of his patient’s condition to memory instead of paying the other man any attention.

Logan only looks a little better than the last time Louis had seen him — he’s not actively bleeding anymore, at least, but the amount of tape and gauze and surgical splinting being used to keep his little body intact isn’t the most promising thing in the world. 

“It’s no secret that Logan’s condition at the moment is very, very fragile,” Dr. Styles goes on to say, and Louis’s eyes find the boy’s parents, then. The pair of them look like they’re holding it together, for the most part — they don’t look as close to being on the verge of collapse, anyhow. He counts that as a win on their part. “He had a lot of very serious injuries when he came to us, and we’ve taken care of most of them, but it’s going to be touch and go for a while to come.”

Louis sighs and looks away at that. He’s heard that particular phrase too many times in his life, he thinks, and in his experience? It’s never been associated with anything good.

“Our biggest concern right now is going to be the fractures in his ribs. The blunt-force trauma from the accident caused breaks in several different places, and a section of his ribcage broke free from the rest of his chest wall,” he goes on explaining, and it’s then that Louis hears a soft, choked noise from Mrs. Parker. When he looks up at the woman again, she’s clinging to her husband’s arm and covering her mouth with one hand, and there are tears in her eyes. “Dr. Spencer, Dr. Jones and I stabilized the fractures in surgery, but for the next few days we’re going to keep him intubated. Until the fractures have bonded properly, he’s going to need to be sedated, and the mechanical ventilation system will help him breathe.”

By the end of the lengthy explanation, Mrs. Parker is openly crying, and Mr. Parker has gone back to looking a bit stoic. It’s definitely reminiscent of what Louis had seen in the waiting room downstairs, and though he’s not sure he has the authority to do so, his first instinct tells him to comfort them. Dr. Spencer beats him to it, anyways, with a smile and a gentle hand on Mr. Parker’s shoulder.

“Don’t panic just yet, folks,” she says, and softens her smile when Mrs. Parker meets her eyes. “I promise you, this is far from the worst case scenario. We were able to repair most of your boy’s injuries. It’s just going to be an uphill climb from here to recovery, now.”

The shaken parents seem to accept the explanation— both of them nod, and Mr. Parker gathers his wife up in his arms and sighs heavily as she dries her tears on his shirt. Dr. Spencer spends a moment more with them, and Louis watches the interaction closely— she seems to have an incredibly gentle way of talking to patients, and he wants to adopt as much of that as he possibly can. He’s going to need it, after all, if he’s going to make the kind of headway here that he hopes to.

“Dr. Spencer is right,” Dr. Styles pipes up, again. “You don’t need to panic anymore—not right now. We’re doing everything we possibly can for Logan, and he’s a fighter. Right now, all you need to do is help him fight,” he says, and when Louis chances a glance at him, he finds that his attending is already looking at him. “And Dr. Tomlinson here is going to be monitoring him closely. Trust me, when there’s something to panic about, we’ll let you know.”

Before Louis can even process what’s just been said, the parents are smiling watery smiles and nodding their agreement, and a moment later both Dr. Styles and Dr. Spencer are collecting themselves and heading for the door. He turns to follow them a second too late, and his heart makes itself at home in his throat as he walks. He’s distracted, he knows, and all he can do for now is hope that it’s not obviously so.

His eyes are glued to Dr. Styles’s back, in the meantime; now that they’re not in the patient’s room anymore he makes no effort to suppress his feelings toward his current situation.He doesn’t let them burst free, not yet; he’s quiet as they arrive at the nurses’ station, and as his superiors talk amongst themselves for a few seconds, but honestly? It’s only because he has no desire to make a scene in front of Dr. Spencer.

He doesn’t pay attention to what the other doctors are saying so much as he watches them talk—or watches Harry talk, rather. He’s vaguely aware of the other man’s eyes wandering, meeting his gaze every so often, and he sets his jaw. The disappointment he’d felt earlier at being treated like a booty call has returned full force, now, and it’s quickly giving way to a searing anger.

It’s one thing, he thinks, to have him paged to run a lab, or do some grunt work on the case, but for Harry to tie him to it in a genuine way, for his own benefit? He is _not_ going to stand for that. Especially not if Harry doesn’t genuinely think he has the skill and the competence to handle a case like this. 

“—and I think it’s a great idea, personally. He’ll have plenty of time to practice downstairs and get the basics down, but the cases that require a genuine attention to detail are just as valuable.” Dr. Spencer has just finished saying. When Louis looks back at her, he finds that she’s looking at him as well. He bites back his annoyance for the moment and manages a smile at her, which she returns before turning her attention back on Dr. Styles. “I’ll leave him with you, then, Doctor. I’m going to go and make sure my other interns haven’t gotten too dizzy chasing their own tails yet. Happens faster than you’d think.”

With that Dr. Spencer is off, and he and Harry are left alone at the nurses’ station. Louis waits until his resident is out of sight to do anything too rash, but the moment she disappears around the corner, he takes Harry by the sleeve of his white coat and promptly walks (drags) him toward the elevators as well. He’s vaguely aware of the other man’s startled protests, but he ignores them as he makes a left just past the elevators and swings the door to the stairwell open so that he can usher him inside. As soon as the door is closed behind them, he corners Harry.

“What you’re doing is unprofessional, _Dr. Styles_ ,” he snaps, eyes narrowed. He keeps his arms folded over his chest as he stares the other man down, actively ignoring the startled blinks he gets in response to his accusation.

“Unpro— _what_?” Harry splutters, looking almost as amused as he had looked this morning, standing in Louis’s kitchen in his pink boxer briefs. “You’ve just dragged me into a stairwell, and _I’m_ being unprofessional?” 

The taller man is stifling laughter as he speaks, obviously tickled by the whole situation. Louis, however, rolls his eyes and turns away from Harry, dropping his arms to his sides. “Oh, whatever,” he bites, and ruffles his fringe with one hand. He turns a hard gaze back on Harry a moment later. “Don’t go on acting like you didn’t get me assigned to this case because of what happened last night.”

As soon as Louis voices his suspicions, Harry’s laughter ceases. His amused smile vanishes, and the look on his face is pinchedwith concern as he takes a step forward and reaches out to touch Louis’s shoulder gently. “What— _no_ ,” he says, seeming at a loss for words for a moment. “That’s not—okay. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ask for you on Logan’s case because I wanted to see you again. I _did_ want to see you again.”

Louis raises an eyebrow in response to Harry’s statement, not bothering with a response for the moment but sparing a pointed glance at the placement of the other man’s hand on his shoulder. With that, Harry withdraws the touch, looking a bit guilty. 

“Look, I—I wanted to see you again, Louis. I won’t deny that. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re being harassed. If that’s the case, you don’t have to work with me.”

For a good moment or two, Louis doesn’t let up. He continues to look hard at Harry, arms crossed over his chest once more. He wants to be upset — he _is_ upset, damn it — but he finds it just a little harder when Harry is standing in front of him, looking about as threatening as a puppy who’s been caught doing something he’s not meant to be doing. His eyes are earnest and pleading, and it’s almost like he really, genuinely feels _bad_. And taking this morning’s encounter into consideration? Louis doesn’t doubt it. 

“You didn’t ask for me because just we shagged, then?” he asks, a bit softer. Harry shakes his head immediately, never once breaking eye contact with him.

“I would never,” he insists, and Louis sighs. He lets his arms fall to his sides, then, literally and figuratively letting his guard down.

“Alright,” he laments. Harry takes half a step closer to him, then, eyeing him, still.

 “Alright?” he asks. Louis grunts.

“We’re _alright,_ Harry,” he says, and meets his attending’s eyes once more. “But this—“ he pauses to gesture between them, and his finger lightly taps Harry’s sternum as he does so. “ _This_ has to be professional, yeah?”

Harry nods his head once more, but his smile betrays him as he spares a glance at Louis’s hand between them. Louis takes a pointed step back, then, and Harry chuckles. “‘Course, Lou. I would never do anything to jeopardize your job. I understand how important your first year is. I was an intern once too, you know,” he says, and Louis laughs dryly.

“It’s _because_ I’m an intern that I’m going to stay on this case with you. Personally? I should be running far, far away from this—“ he starts, and snorts when he notices the pout that his words prompt from the other man. “But I couldn’t reasonably go back to my peers and tell them that I was assigned to a big, bloody trauma and I turned it down.”

With that, Harry’s pout disappears, and he chuckles.

“Fair enough,” he says, looking rather amused. “But it’s more of a little bloody trauma if you ask me.”

The morbid joke startles a laugh out of Louis. “That’s terrible,” he says, and Harry grins at him. He doesn’t say anything more, though, so Louis takes that as an out. He shakes his head and turns toward the door, smiling as he goes. Before he makes it very far, though, Harry speaks up again.

“Louis,” he says, and Louis turns and acknowledges him with a hum. “I wasn’t the only one who requested you on Logan’s case, so you know. His parents asked about you, too. Said you’d given them more reassurance than anyone else they’d spoken to today.”

He looks at Harry for a long moment after he’s finished speaking, both trying to gauge how genuine his words are and considering the way that the attending is looking at him. He never falters, and he looks as warm and as genuine as he had this morning, when Louis had asked if he could trust him to let himself out of the apartment at half past five in the morning. He averts his eyes eventually, though, unable to contain the happy smile on his face when it hits him that Harry doesn’t seem to be taking the piss out of him.

He doesn’t say anything else, though—he’s not sure he trusts his tongue, not with Harry.Not in this moment. So instead of grinning and thanking Dr. Styles like he wants to, he chooses to nod his head and continue toward the door instead.He’s got to get out of this stairwell, anyways—before, god forbid, anyone gets the wrong idea about him disappearing behind closed doors with his attending.

“I’ve got a patient to monitor,” he says, and leaves it at that. And it’s a bit too familiar, the laughter he hears from Harry as he as he goes.

-     

He’s been up in the pediatric ICU for roughly 3 hours, monitoring Logan’s vitals religiously and talking with the boy’s parents here and there when Anna finds him. She marches up to him stoney-faced, and corners him at the nurses station as he’s dropping Logan’s chart off there.

“You’re a prick, you know that?” she says, foregoing any sort of ceremony. Louis splutters.

“What?” he asks simply, dumbfounded. He hasn’t seen Anna since the clinic — the last time he’d scene her she’d been intently stitching up a patient, and she’d been pointedly ignoring him ever since he’d given her grief about Olivia, so he’d left her be.

“ _You_ got assigned to our trauma,” she insists, nodding toward the room Louis had just come from. He spares a glance back at the boy and his parents, who only seem to leave the bedside when Louis comes in to do his checks, and raises an eyebrow as he looks back toward Anna.

“ _Our_ trauma?” he asks with an incredulous smile, crossing his arms over his chest as he eyes his fellow intern. She groans aloud.

“The trauma that we were _all_ on—“ 

 “For about two minutes,” he interrupts. Anna rolls her eyes.

“Whatever. I can’t believe you didn’t say anything,” she says, giving him a gentle shove at the shoulder. “I found out from Horan! And Payne and I asked you about it when you came down to clinic.”

Louis can’t help but laugh at that, imagining poor, friendly Niall getting berated by a very irritated Anna.

“And I didn’t get the assignment until hours after that. Was I supposed to say no?” he counters, brushing past the short, blonde girl in favor of heading for a nearby vending machine. He hasn’t had anything to eat all day today, and ever since Logan’s parents had gone and gotten lunch for themselves an hour or so ago, he’s been famished.

“Of course not, idiot,” she says, hot on his tail. He can’t help but smile— he finds it absolutely hilarious that she’s essentially come at him burning without actually coming up with anything to say for herself. He likes Anna, he thinks — she has a fire about her, and it’s like she just hasn’t found a place to focus it yet.

“Then why exactly am _I_ the prick in this situation?” he asks, and laughs happily when Anna throws her hands up in defeat.

“It was _our_ trauma! We were on it together,” she insists, and runs a hand through her bleached hair as she leans up against the wall beside the vending machine. “And I heard that you were _asked_ for - that’s what Dr. Spencer said. None of the rest of us got requested _specifically_.”

Louis shakes his head as he feeds a few bank notes into the vending machine and punches in the code that’ll get him a package of biscuits. “The parents asked for me,” he says, because it’s not a lie. So long as what Harry had told him earlier was true, Logan’s parents _had_ asked about him. and Anna shakes her head, though, not looking convinced in the least.

“Yeah, and so did _Dr. Styles,_ ” she says. “Don’t play dumb with me, Tomlinson.”

Louis groans inwardly at that — he had been hoping sincerely that the word hadn’t gotten around that Harry had been the one to request him on Logan’s case, because honestly? That’s the last thing he needs. The moment people start finding out, his entire medical career will rest on the fact that he slept with his boss intern year. It makes him look like a cheat and liar, and it downplays his talent. At the very least, though, it doesn’t seem like Anna has any idea _why_ Dr. Styles had asked for him specifically, which means he can more than likely still play it cool.

“The kid’s parents had to talk to someone, didn’t they? S’not like they waffled on about how fantastic I am to my face, love,” he says, never faltering. He thanks the heavens for all of the theater classes he’d taken before he’d changed his major to medicine - he’d never imagined any of them would be of any use to him in the medical field, but here he is.  

Anna scoffs at that. “Sure. Whatever you say,” she says, leaning her head back against the wall just in time for Louis to turn and head back toward the nurses’ station with a can of pop and a package of miniature doughnuts in hand. The girl sighs thickly and moves—or trudges, for all intents and purposes—to follow him. “It’s not like you can blame me for being pissed. I’ve been in the clinic wiping noses and talking little girls through their periods all day.”

“Periods, huh?” Louis says, smiling a coy smile as they reach the ICU. She reaches out and swats at him once more, and he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it.

“You’re genuinely getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?” she says. There’s a hint of a smile playing at her lips as she moves to lean up against the counter across from Louis, then, arms folded across her chest. And Louis is about to grin and let her know that _yes,_ he is very much getting a kick out of this, but he doesn’t get the chance before a familiar presence edges into the scene.

“Hey, Lou,” Harry says, all relaxed smiles and hands in pockets and casual body language. Louis instantly stiffens like a board, acutely aware of the way that his attending focuses solely on him and doesn’t pay a bit of mind to Anna, directly across from them. “How’s our kid? Still swinging?”

Louis clears his throat at that and nods his head, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.  “He’s all good right now,” he says, not meeting Harry’s eyes. He doesn’t look directly at Anna either, though, for fear of giving himself away. “Been doing hourly checks. His vitals are still stable and the ventilation is holding him steady.” 

Harry nods at that, his smile warming a bit more — if that were possible — as he turns to head for the room himself. Louis is just about to relax, because _he’s walking away now, it’s fine_ , but then Harry brushes a hand across his back as he goes. And he swears, then, that he can feel Anna’s eyes burning holes into his chest.

It takes Louis a moment to gather the courage to meet her eyes once Harry has gone. When he does, they’re ablaze.

“Unbelievable,” she spits. Louis winces at that. Anna turns to storm away, but he catches her arm before she has the chance.

“Anna, wait—“ he says, just in time for her to rip her arm from his grip. She’s glaring daggers at him, and she looks about half a second away from shouting obscenities at him, so he speaks quickly. “I didn’t _know,_ okay?” he starts. Anna doesn’t stop glaring, but she doesn’t stomp away immediately, either. “I didn’t know he worked here. Last night—“

“The intern mixer was last night,” she interrupts him, looking extremely unimpressed. He cuts her off before she can say any more, though, happy to supply her with an alibi.

“I was never at the mixer. I didn’t come,” Louis reasons. Anna still looks equal parts skeptical and pissed, so he keeps talking. “Think about it. Did you see either of us there?” he prompts, and gives Anna a moment to consider it before he continues. “He was at the same bar I was. And I didn’t _know_ , alright? Not until this morning.”

By the end of his explanation, the fiery girl seems to have softened a bit. She still looks skeptical, definitely, but she doesn’t look like she’s dead set on going and ruining his reputation with every one of their peers, so Louis counts that as a win.

“I’m going to go ahead and assume the two of you slept together, then?” she asks, and Louis flushes. He sighs thickly, dragging one hand over his face as he nods his head. A part of him can’t believe they’re even having this conversation, but he doesn’t exactly have another choice, so.

“Yes,” he says simply. Anna shakes her head, glancing pointedly toward the room that Dr. Styles had gone into moments prior and rolling her eyes. 

“It was obvious enough. The way he touched you and went on pretending that I didn’t exist? You’re going to want to watch that,” she points out. Louis sags with relief for a split second, wholly thankful that Anna doesn’t seem to want to throw him under the bus anymore. He prickles with annoyance once more a moment later, though, as he thinks back on the conversation he’d had with Harry earlier about keeping their relationship professional.

“Believe me, I’ve already made it _very_ clear to him that I don’t have any interest in a workplace relationship,” he clarifies. Anna cracks a smile at that.

“Yeah, well. He _clearly_ didn’t take the hint,” she says, just in time for Dr. Styles to come waltzing back out of Logan’s room with a smile on his face.

“Nothing but good things from the parents. You’re doing great, Lou,” he says as he hands the chart back to Louis. Louis smiles and nods stiffly, thanking the heavens when Harry leaves it at that, turning and walking away without another word. Anna clears her throat a moment later, and when Louis looks her way again, her arms are crossed over her chest.

“Hate to break it to you, Tomlinson, but _no_ attending is that nice. Not to an intern. If you’re genuinely not interested, you might want to think about a sexual harassment complaint,” she suggests, and Louis sighs thickly. He knows that Anna has a point, but when he thinks back to a few hours ago, when he _had_ accused Harry of harassing him, he can’t bring himself to act on her suggestion. He thinks about how hurt the man had looked at the very idea, and shakes his head.

“No,” he says simply. He thinks for a moment about foregoing any elaboration, but promptly realizes that he can’t do that without raising Anna’s suspicions. “Honestly, he’s harmless. And besides, I don’t need that something like that on my reputation right from the get-go.”

Anna hums her acknowledgement and nods her head, but her blue eyes still hold a touch of skepticism as she looks at Louis. Louis breaks eye contact, then, sure it must show on his face that he has a soft spot for Harry — albeit a small one — despite every wrench that had been thrown into their relationship since this morning.

They’re both quiet for a good couple of moments. Louis has just started to think he’s off the hook when Anna laughs softly, shaking her head as she drops her arms to her sides. “I wasn’t sure what you meant earlier, when you said ‘it takes one to know one’”, she says. Louis blinks and looks up at her once more. “I think I get it now.”

With that, Anna turns and walks away, leaving Louis standing at the nurse’s station, wide-eyed and more than a little bit taken aback.

-

The next time Louis sees Harry, it’s lunch time. He’s just gotten the okay from the both the nurses and Dr. Spencer to head down to the cafeteria for a bit of food — it’s not going to be a long break, he knows, but he’s been monitoring Logan’s vitals for the past several hours, and while he’s happy to have been ended up on one of the bigger surgical case on his first day, it hasn’t been terribly eventful so far. His interest in taking the boy’s blood pressure and pulse ox and temperature had been surpassed by his interest in the turkey sandwich he’d seen on the cafeteria’s menu this morning around an hour ago.

He’s just gotten his tray and settled down at the nearest empty table in the cafeteria when a to-go cup of coffee appears beside his sandwich, and he looks up to see none other than Dr. Styles standing to his left, smiling happily. Louis sighs thickly, turning his attention back to the food in front of him.

“Dr. Styles,” he says. He means it to sound pointed, but he knows very well that it comes out sounding a lot more tired than anything else. He has been here since six this morning, after all, and right now? Right now he just doesn’t have enough fight in him to tell Harry that he needs to get lost, for both of their sakes.

“Thought we were on a first name basis?” the pediatric attending says, still smiling as he takes a seat across from Louis. He doesn’t seem to be carrying his own cup of coffee, Louis notes, and sighs inwardly at that. He nudges the paper cup with his pinky and then picks up his sandwich, meeting Harry’s eyes for a quick moment.

“That wouldn’t come across very _professional_ , now, would it?” he points out. Harry’s response is nothing but a soft bit of laughter, and he responds not by getting up and leaving the cafeteria, as Louis would like, but by folding his arms in front of him and leaning forward across the table top.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” he retorts. There’s a familiar sparkle in his eye, and he never looks away from Louis. Louis, on the other hand, makes every effort not to look directly at Harry for too long.  “I’ve been a perfect angel.” 

Louis can’t help but snort at that, chewing and swallowing a bite of his sandwich before he abandons his meal in favor of picking up the coffee Harry had brought to him. 

“Oh, a perfect angel?” he asks as he takes a swig of the coffee. He wants to refuse it, he does, but he’s got another forty-something hours left in this shift and frankly, he’d be an idiot to turn down a free cup of caffeine. “With all of your touching, and terms of endearment in front of my coworkers, and—and _this_?”

He holds the cup of coffee he’d just taken a sip of up to emphasize his point. Harry only grins, though, leaning back in his seat and shaking his head. Louis takes another sip of the coffee, despite himself.

“It’s just coffee,” Harry says. He doesn’t elaborate — he just continues to sit there, looking as charming as ever as Louis blinks at him, dumbfounded. He’s about to respond, to tell Harry that there’s no world in which it's _just coffee,_ because bringing coffee to interns is very simply not what attendings _do,_ but before he gets the chance there’s another body clambering up to the table.

It’s Niall, this time, and he looks about as tired as Louis feels. He plops down next to Louis with his own tray of food in hand, and makes a point of nudging him with one elbow as he does so. “Tommo, my mate,” he greets. Before the conversation goes any further Louis narrows his eyes at Harry, doing his damndest to convey to the other man that he needs to _go, now._

The attending seems to take the hint, then, because he breaks eye-contact with Louis in favor of sparing a glance at Niall, and in the very next second he’s standing from his seat and tucking his hands into his pockets. “Right, well. That’s all I’ve got at the moment, I think,” he says, and the statement sounds so ridiculously faked that it almost makes Louis cringe. “We’ll discuss the labs when you get back from lunch. Enjoy the coffee, Dr. Tomlinson.”

Louis does cringe, then. He sets the coffee aside and glues his eyes to his sandwich, opting to look anywhere but at Harry’s retreating form, and definitely avoiding the gaze of his friend, beside him. He can feel his Niall’s eyes on him, though, and because it’s Niall, the stiff silence doesn’t linger for long.

“Bloody hell,” Niall says, and Louis’s blood runs cold. He thinks for a moment that he’s been _caught_ \- he’s been caught, and he’s about to lose the trust of the kindest person in this program because Harry hadn’t been able to keep his pretty pink mouth shut. He’s about to start defending himself when the Irish lad laughs wholeheartedly, and the dread that’d washed over him dwindles, just a bit. He looks up, and to his surprise, Niall is smiling - he looks a bit gobsmacked, sure, but he definitely doesn’t look like he’s about to tear Louis a new one.

“You’ve got to tell me how you scored an attending who brings you coffee. D’ya wanna trade? I’ve been the one fetching coffee for mine all morning,” he says. There’s not a bit of accusation in his eyes when he looks Louis’s way, and Louis can’t help but breathe a relieved sigh, at that. The relief doesn’t last long, though — he almost wishes he could tell Niall exactly how big of a cheat and a liar he feels like he is, because he thinks of everyone, Niall might be the least likely to berate him. 

Instead, he cracks a weak smile and returns the lad’s friendly nudge.

“You got an assignment with an attending though, yeah?” he says. “That’s good news.” 

Niall’s responding eye-roll is dramatic enough to startle a laugh out of Louis, and he raises an eyebrow as he waits for his fellow intern to go on. “If you can call making coffee runs and running errands for an attending _good_ , then sure,” he scoffs. He spends a moment munching on a cheese stick he must have gotten from the protein section of the snack cart before continuing. “I feel like I haven’t learned a damn thing. Except maybe what a ‘bone dry’ cappuccino is.” 

Louis can’t help but laugh at that, and with a hum, he picks up his gifted coffee and takes a sip once more. It’s lukewarm, by now, and if he’s honest it’s got far too much sugar in it, but he can’t help but feel just a little bit grateful when he thinks about Niall’s morning in comparison to his own.

“I think I’ll keep mine, thanks,” he says, and leaves it at that.

He’ll have to talk to Harry about the obvious way in which he seems to have been been laying claim to him in front of other people but as long as he’s actually able to work on a patient — and a patient in the specialty he’s interested in, at that— he’s definitely going to stick with the overly-affectionate attending’s service.

It’s not much longer before the other interns start trickling into the cafeteria, and soon enough their table is crowded both with the interns from their own group and stragglers from other groups — including Chelsea, who he’d met earlier, and what he assumes are a couple of the girls from her group.

They take turns discussing their respective experiences with the day so far, and for the most part, Louis just sits back and listens. The stories range from downright dull, like Niall’s, to slightly more eventful, to mildly amusing. He discovers quickly that despite his situation, he’d been far from having gotten the short end of the stick. A couple of the interns have already made their first somewhat critical mistake, which Louis can’t help but envy a touch. A perfect record leaves no room for error, after all. 

Another of the interns is roughly halfway through her story about how her resident had assigned her to do every rectal exam that had come in today (thank goodness for Dr. Spencer, honestly) when Louis begins to zone out. He doesn’t mean to, really — it’s not that his peers’ stories aren’t interesting, because they definitely are. Some of them are downright laughable. He can’t help the way that his mind drifts, though, now that it’s been temporarily relieved of the loop of _bloodpressurepulseoxtemperature, bloodpressurepulseoxtemperature_ it’s set on for the past several hours.

He thinks about Harry, in spite of all of the time and effort he’d put toward _not_ thinking about the other man today. He thinks about the way that he seems to seize every free moment he can to talk with Louis, even if it’s strictly about work. He thinks about the coffee and the encouragement and Harry’s general kindness toward him, and for a brief moment he truly wishes that he could just let all of it slide. Were it not for the fact that he was an intern and Harry an attending, he’d have been hitting on the curly lad like nobody’s business, and he’s very well aware of it.

He just _can’t_ , though, not this year, and not with everything he has at stake. The idea is only further solidified when he looks up and finds Anna across the table, studying him intently.

He raises an eyebrow at her, about to make a comment, but before the words leave his mouth he realizes that she’s sat next to Dr. Lane. And really, he just can’t pass up an opportunity to give her grief about it, so he cracks a smug smile and nods toward the pretty redhead, waggling his brows all the while. He can’t help but snicker when Anna blushes furiously and breaks eye contact in favor of paying attention to Liam, who’s currently telling Niall all about the hundreds of thousands of sutures he’s done today. She chimes in with her own comment about her _little-girl-with-her-period_ experience, and that’s that. 

He waits another moment or two before he stands to excuse himself from the table, and he blinks when most every person at the table looks up to see where he’s off to. He offers his fellow interns a smile and a half of a shrug. “Sorry,” he says, turning and dumping the remaining contents of his lunch tray into the nearest bin. “I’ve got a patient to get back to.”

A good amount of the interns brush him off with a groan the moment he says it — some even flip him the bird, and he smiles at that. Niall swats at him as he walks past.

“Get your fancy attending to bring me some coffee, too, wanker,” Niall calls after him. He can’t help but prickle at that, and he hopes it doesn’t come through in his voice when he tells Niall to bugger off. Whether it does or not, though, he can feel Anna’s gaze on him the full length of his walk out of the cafeteria, and that alone makes him want to crawl into the nearest hole in the ground and never come back out. 

He ducks around the nearest corner as soon as he’s able, breathing a sigh of relief the moment he’s out from under the watchful gaze of his friends and colleagues. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to Anna _knowing —_ not really. He’ll have to grin and bear it, though, if he’s going to make it out of this year alive. Grin and bear it and stay in touch with the people in his life who remind him why he’s here in Seattle, doing what he’s doing.

Which is exactly why he doesn’t head back to the PICU right away, despite what he’d told the other interns. He’s still got about fifteen minutes to burn so long as he doesn’t get paged, so he makes a left at the end of the hallway instead of the right that would take him to the elevators, and heads for the lockers instead.

The moment he gets his locker open, he tracks down the jean jacket he’d exchanged for his white coat this morning and digs his mobile out of the left pocket. He punches in the number he’d memorized years ago and takes a seat on the bench as the phone rings once, twice, before the sound cuts off and a familiar voice comes over the line to greet him.

“Hi, mum,” he says. The tension he’s been holding in his posture all morning dissipates the moment he hears his mother’s voice over the line, as comforting and warm as it’s always been as she asks him how his first shift has been.

He settles into his spot in the quiet locker room, and makes the executive decision to relax, for the next 15 minutes at the very least. His job will be right here in front of him for the rest of the year. His family, on the other hand - his family won’t be.

-

The first scare of his shift happens hours later, as he’s making his way back from the loo.

He’d been monitoring the Parker boy’s vitals for what’d been beginning to feel like a lifetime by the time he’d finally decided to take a break, and over the course of three, four hours, nothing had changed. At this rate he doesn’t expect anything to change any time soon, but before he can make it back from the restroom for another round of _blood pressure, pulse ox, temperature,_ he gets a page.

The sound startles him at first, only because his pager had only gone off once since since he’d strapped it to the waistband of his scrubs this morning. As soon as he realizes where the sound is coming from he fumbles for the little device, heart rabbiting in his chest as he gets a look at it and realizes that the little screen is flashing the numbers _“9-1-1”._

 For a split second, he freezes. The nausea he’d felt earlier is back, and it’s almost like he’s back in the ER, palms sweating as he waits for someone in charge to tell him what to do. It only takes him another half of a second to realize that he’s the one in charge, here, and all he can hear are Dr. Spencer’s words, echoing in his head.

 _“If the nurses are paging you, you’ve got a patient in need, and you should be at their bedside_ A-S-A-P _!”_

And he runs.

He runs like his own life depends on it, despite the fact that Logan’s room is just down the hall and around the corner from the restroom he’d gone to. He ends up skidding into the room a little less than gracefully, and when he gets there, Logan is seizing violently. The little boy is writhing around like a fish out of water despite his all of his sedation, and the two nurses doing their best to hold him steady look to Louis for direction the moment he comes into the room.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, first looking toward the boy’s parents, who are both stood in the corner looking absolutely horrified. He looks back to the nurses, then, surely looking like a deer staring into a pair of headlights as he wracks his brain for every ounce of knowledge he’d been given in medical school regarding seizures. “Push one of diazepam through his IV!”

His voice shakes as he blurts the order, definitely, but he doesn’t stop to think about it. The first thing on his mind once he’s gotten his thoughts together is the stabilization of the fractures in Logan’s ribs, and when the seizure doesn’t immediately stop with the first round of medication, he’s at the boy’s bedside in a second. 

“Alright, alright, just — give’im another round, then,” he says, firm but frantic as he helps one nurse hold Logan’s body steady while the other readies another dose of medication. “And— Jesus — and page Dr. Styles!”

He’s certainly impressed with himself for remaining relatively calm throughout the whole ordeal, but he’d absolutely have been lying if he’d said he didn’t feel like his life was hanging in the balance along with his patient’s the entire time.

He’s not sure how much time passes before Harry gets there, but he knows that he feels Logan’s body still beneath his hands at one point, and he can’t help but panic a bit at that. His hands shake as he looks the boy over, hoping to god that his actions hadn’t done him more harm than good. By the time he takes his eyes off of Logan Harry is there, and he’s tying his tongue in knots trying to explain what had just happened.

“I just — he just —“ he sputters. He pauses a moment to collect himself, and then tries again. “I went to the bathroom, and then the nurses paged me, and he was—he was just _seizing_ —“

“Louis, relax,” Harry says, then, cutting him off. Louis exhales a shaky breath, keeping his eyes on Harry for a moment before he drops his gaze to his feet. He feels the peds surgeon’s hands on his shoulders a moment later, though, and with that he looks up once more. “You did everything you were supposed to. You stopped the seizure.” 

Louis blinks, dumbfounded. He spares a glance at Logan, whostill appears to be lying still, and then at his parents, who are looking at he and Harry with wide, wet eyes. When he brings his gaze back around to Harry, he finds that the attending is smiling at him, and he catches his breath.

“Just a second,” Harry says, and turns away from Louis in favor of heading for Logan’s parents, instead. He listens for a moment as Harry explains to Mr. and Mrs. Parker what had just happened, but he decides in the next moment to seize the opportunity to take a breather.

He inches out of the room quickly and quietly, holding his breath the whole way. The moment he’s out of earshot of both Harry and Logan’s parents he turns on his heel and speed-walks down the hallway, past the elevators, and ducks into the stairwell that he’d dragged Harry into earlier.

He presses his palms to his temples, then, and focuses on his breathing as he drops down onto one of the steps for a quick second. He’s got to _breathe,_ he thinks — he just needs to breathe, or he’s going to vomit, and the only way he’s going to be able to do that is with a moment of quiet.

He considers heading back to the lockers and nabbing his phone so that he can call his mum back, but he can’t very well do that — he can’t just disappear with his patient in the middle of a crisis, and it’d been nearly nine at night in Doncaster when he’d rung her earlier. It’s well into the early hours of the morning, now, and he can’t just wake his mum every time _he’s_ in crisis. A good portion of this job revolves around being in crisis, after all — he’s going to have to get used to it at some point.

It’s only another few minutes before his little bubble of quiet is burst. He’s sitting there, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees and his eyes closed when the door opens. He doesn’t bother to open his eyes for a few seconds, because he’s fairly certain who it is that’s come after him; he just keeps breathing, _in, out, in, out._

Eventually the intruder sits down next to him on the steps, and he exhales thickly. When he opens his eyes and raises his head he finds that Harry is already looking at him, and his heart thumps in his chest. He bites his lip as he meets the other man’s gaze, choosing to let Harry have the first word this time around.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he says, and Louis laughs airily, raising a hand to scrub at the tears that he hadn’t given the chance to fall. 

“Just needed a second, s’all,” he says softly. He looks away, then, chooses to stare at the ground beneath his feet rather than into Harry’s gentle eyes. He still feels like he’s on shaky ground, and sure as he is that Harry would probably understand, he doesn’t want to show that quite much weakness to someone who’s meant to have authority over him. 

“He’s alright, you know,” Harry says after brief silence. “He’s alive.”

Louis manages a smile at that, even if it is a touch shaky.

“He’s alive, but he might not be alright,” he reasons, shaking his head. Logan had been seizing for a good 3, 4 minutes — he knows better than to think that the little boy is automatically going to come out it unscathed. “With the seizure, and his ribs, he might…”

The fight goes out of him as he considers the situation, and he allows his words to trail off, knowing very well that he doesn’t need to explain it to Harry. He sighs thickly instead, ruffling his fringe with one hand and raising his head to focus his gaze on the handle of the door in front of them.

The next thing he knows, there’s a gentle hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles in between his shoulder blades. His first instinct is to jerk away, of course, but he doesn’t quite have it in him right now, so he just lets it be. The part of him that’s still scared as hell and wanting to call his mum _needs_ it, anyhow, so he’s at a bit of an impasse.

“I know. But none of that is your fault,” Harry says, and for the first time since he’d left Logan’s room, Louis feels his throat constrict with emotion. He looks to Harry, then, who never seems to let up with his warm smile and his gentle touch, and shakes his head. “You weren’t doing anything but monitoring him. This is just something we missed when he was in surgery the first time.”

Louis nods along as Harry talks, staying quiet and allowing his attending’s words to sink in. Harry certainly isn’t lying to him — all he’s done for the past eight, nine hours has been continuous vital checks. There’s no way he’d caused any of this himself, and logically, he thinks he’s known that from the start - he’d just needed someone with a little more knowledge, a little more experience, to confirm it for him.

_His patient isn’t dying. He didn’t do this. It’s not his fault._

_“_ All good?” Harry asks when he doesn’t immediately respond. He forgoes rubbing at Louis’s back in favor of reaching around to touch Louis’s cheek instead, as gentle as ever. It freezes him in placed for a good couple of seconds, and he swallows thickly as he nods his head in acknowledgment. 

“Yeah, good,” he says a moment later, and immediately feels ashamed of how soft and vulnerable he sounds. He should be ignoring the surge of heat that runs through him as he looks into Harry’s eyes, he knows, but in this moment it’s a bit unavoidable. It feels like a completely different atmosphere when it’s just the two of them, alone in this quiet stairwell.

Harry only continues to touch, brushing one thumb along Louis’s cheekbone with a feather light touch for a brief moment or two before he withdraws his hand and moves to stand.

“Good. I’ll give you another minute or two, but we’ve got to get Logan up to CT soon so we can figure out what’s causing his seizures,” he says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat as he speaks. Louis only nods, still feeling just a little bit dazed as he tracks Harry with his gaze. The other man’s smile only grows as he seems to realize the effect his touch has had on Louis, and he looks away a moment later.

“I’ll have you take him up for his CT. Just make sure you take a left at the end of the hallway when you get off of the elevator,” he advises, and laughs softly when Louis tilts his head, confused. “I took a right, the first time I ever took someone to CT. Got lost and ended up wandering around for ages.”

The story makes Louis smile, and a moment later he straightens up, nodding his head once more as he wipes his clammy palms off on his scrubs.

“Thanks, Dr. Styles,” he says, offering Harry a genuine smile. Harry only rolls his eyes and turns to exit the stairwell, leaving it at that.

Louis takes advantage of the extra few minutes that Harry had given him, certainly, but it’s more to collect himself and build his guard back up more than anything else. His logical mind has tapped back into the situation at hand, now, and it’s not hard to put what had happened with Logan aside. The moment Harry is out of the stairwell and out of earshot, though, he groans loudly.

He tangles both hands up in his hair for a moment as he sits there, kicking himself for giving the other man such a _blatant_ in — he’d meant to have a stern conversation with him the next time he’d seen him, and instead he’d gone and frozen up like a school girl with a crush.

He only gives himself another second or two before he’s getting to his feet and straightening his scrubs. He can’t let this get to him — he can’t let _Harry_ get to him. He’d had a vulnerable moment, sure, but that was no excuse.

He tells himself once, twice, three times to get it together before he exits the stairwell, walking with purpose as he heads back toward his patient’s room.

-

In the end, it runs out that the Parker boy has a minor brain bleed that the doctors had missed the first time around. It had started out as a minor subdural hematoma, which with time had bled slowly and caused an increase in the pressure on his brain. The increase in his ICP had been what had led to his seizure.

According to Dr. Styles, the hematoma and the seizure, minor as they both were, wouldn’t have any lasting effect on Logan’s brain function. Louis doesn’t think he could possibly have been more relieved to hear that news in particular. He’d been beyond worried that he hadn’t been able to stop the boy’s seizure in time — that he might never wake up again, or worse, that he _would_ wake up but never be the same again.

They end up going back in for another surgery, Dr, Jones, Dr. Styles, and now Dr. Prendergast, the chief of neurosurgery. Dr. Spencer doesn’t end up in the O.R. with them this time around, and therefore, neither does Louis. It had looked for a second like Harry might be considering asking him to scrub in, but if that had been the case, he hadn’t acted on it. Louis is almost glad for that — as much as he thinks he’d have loved to see a pediatric neurosurgery up close and personal, he just wouldn’t have felt right accepting an invitation to scrub in from Harry. Not after the stairwell incident.

In the absence of his patient, Dr. Spencer sends him down to the ER - or the pit, as she seems to have a habit of calling it — to help out. And while he might have complained about such an assignment earlier on, he doesn’t exactly mind, now. Following the scare he’d been given by the whole seizure ordeal, he thinks he’s perfectly okay hanging around the relatively empty emergency room for a while.

He runs into Liam and Niall there, anyhow, and the three of them are able to spend a good amount of time catching up and generally bullshitting with one another.

Niall doesn’t bring the coffee situation up again and Liam doesn’t even seem to have caught on, so he’s rather content spending a good amount of hours practicing sutures and running labs and treating patients with chest pain who only think that they’re having heart attacks. It’s a great way to spend the four, five hours that his patient is in surgery, definitely.

It’s not until around the six hour mark that he starts to feel like he might be in need of a power nap — he’s just finished another set of sutures, and when he looks up from his work and his eyes take a good ten seconds to focus back in, he decides that he might need a break. He bandages the patient’s now-closed wound asks the nurse to discharge them, and as soon as he’s finished with that he heads for the nurses’s station to let Liam and Niall know where he’s off to.

He tells them to page him if anything good comes in, and with that he goes in search of an on-call room. He breathes a thick sigh of relief the moment he gets into a room and closes the door behind him; his eyes are already half-closed as he sheds his coat and shoes and wanders toward the bunk bed in the corner.

These longer than long shifts are going to be the death of him, he’s sure, if the way he’s feeling now is any indication. He’ll have to get used to it, though, he thinks as he gets comfortable in bed — that is, if he doesn’t plan on dropping dead from exhaustion this year. He positions his pager directly next to his head on the pillow and drags the thin bedsheets overtop of himself, choosing not to think to much about it for the time being.

The sixteen hours he’s worked so far get the best of him rather quickly, and he succumbs to sleep within moments — so quickly that he never hears the on-call room door open up a second time, just long enough for someone to peek into the room and then shut the door quietly once more as soon as they realize that he’s already asleep.

-

The next time Louis wakes, it’s dawn. He can hear the quiet drizzle of rain outside the window, and it’s strangely reminiscent of the previous morning. He’s a bit slow to come to in the first few moments, but as soon as he’s alert enough to notice the pale light filtering in through the blinds, he sits up with a start.

The very first thing he does is check his pager, and according to the little device, he hasn’t missed any pages — urgent or otherwise. He breathes a sigh of relief at that but scrambles out of bed regardless, throwing on his coat and slipping into his shoes. When he catches a glimpse of the clock on the wall (which reads 7:06am), he leaves the room sprinting.

He heads straight for the pediatric intensive care unit, taking the stairs to avoid having to wait for an elevator, and he’s well out of breath by the time he skids to a stop at the nurses station.

“‘ello, I’m —I’m meant to be monitoring Logan Parker. Is he —“ he starts, but cuts himself short before he comes off as needlessly frantic and makes a fool of himself. “How is he doing?”

The nurse behind the counter nods in the direction of Logan’s room, a soft bit of laughter escaping her as she takes him in. She’s one of the few older women on staff, and it’s clear in the way that she smiles kindly at him that she’s been dealing with flighty interns for a number of years now. She’s perfectly calm as she speaks to Louis.

“He’s doing just fine, honey,” she reassures him. “He came out of surgery last night. Flying colors.”

The nurse, in her green scrubs, doesn’t look she had been the least bit concerned with his absence. Louis takes a moment to catch his breath as he nods his head, and he exhales thickly as he looks between Logan’s room and the kind nurse.

“Why wasn’t I paged? I’ve been monitoring him since he came in yesterday morning,” he explains. He spares another glance back toward the room, where he can now see both of Logan’s parents — one at each side of the little boy’s bed. 

“Dr. Styles told us not to, dear,” the nurse says. The woman reminds Louis a lot of his nan back in Doncaster, with her sweet smiles and pet names and generally happy demeanor, and he can’t find it in himself to be upset with her — even despite the surge of irritation he feels at the mention of the pediatric attending’s request. 

“Does he still want me on the case?” he asks, shaking his head. He knows very well that he shouldn’t be asking a nurse all of this — what he should be doing is finding his resident, and possibly talking to her about filing a _some_ kind of complaint about his attending, if not a sexual harassment claim.

“Oh, yes, of course,” the nurse says, and proceeds to hand gather up Logan’s chart to hand to Louis. He takes it from the woman hesitantly, opening it up to take a quick look at the most recent notes — notes that had been taken throughout the night, while he’d been asleep in the on-call room. “He just told us you were down for the night and that we shouldn’t page you unless it was an emergency. And there hasn’t been any emergencies.”

Louis sighs thickly at that, snapping the chart shut and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.Of course — _of course_ Harry had told the nurses not to page him. If he’s honest, he would have almost preferred for the nurse to have told him that he was being kicked off of the case altogether. He looks back at her a minute or two later and offers her a stiff smile.

“Thank you — uh,” he says, and pauses to look for the nurse’s name badge. 

“Gwen, dear,” she supplies, and Louis’s smile softens a bit.

“Thank you, Gwen,” he says, and hands Logan’s chart back to her.

He heads toward the boy’s room with an air of determination in his step, smiling politely as he greets the lad’s parents and begins working around them. He checks Logan’s incisions and takes his vitals, just like he’s been doing all along — like he should have _continued_ doing hours ago.

-

The remainder of his shift is dull, and consists mostly of continued vital checks and lab-runs for his patient. He’s knows very well where the lab is by the end of it all, he thinks, and he’s gotten in good graces with most of the nurses in the PICU. He does get paged by Dr. Spencer once, and she warns him (kindly, as is usually the case with her) that he should be very careful about missing rounds. He feels like a right prick the entire time, even though she never truly gets stern with him, and the fact that he can’t even place the blame on the correct person is even more frustrating. There’s no way he can bring Harry into the conversation, because he can’t risk her asking him to explain why Dr. Styles would do something like ask the nurses to let him sleep through the night.

The whole situation is shit, if he’s honest, and he spends the remainder of the day trying to decide if he should request to be taken off of Logan’s case. He doesn’t bother taking another nap for fear that Harry will try to _take care_ of him again, and by the time dawn (and the official end of the first shift) comes around again, he’s absolutely knackered.

His feet drag the floor as he leaves the PICU for the locker room, where he winds up meeting up with a good amount of the interns. Niall, Liam, Anna, and Olivia are all there, and he half expects the lot of them to start sharing success stories and horror stories alike, just like they had every other time they had all met as a group. As it turns out, though, they’re all so tired that they can barely muster a “hello”, and the room is relatively silent as they trade in their well-worn scrubs for the clothes that they had walked into the hospital wearing — a full two days ago, now.

Niall gives him a friendly nudge and a bit of grief about missing rounds, as well as what had apparently been a semi-eventful night in the emergency room. Liam grins and ruffles Louis’s hair when he groans aloud and tells them that he never wants to hear the words “blood pressure”, “pulse ox”, or “temperature” again. Anna and Olivia keep to themselves for the most part, but he notices that they’re talking quietly amongst themselves, and he smiles at that.

They trickle out of the room one by one, all surely planning to get home and tumble into bed for the next several hours, and eventually, Louis is left in the locker room alone. He blames his lack of rest for the extra bit of time that it takes him to gather his things; he feels like his limbs are moving through jelly, and as much as he loves his job, he can’t help but hate it, just a little bit. He shoots a quick text message to his mum — lets her know that he’s going on twenty-plus hours without sleep, now, and she should let the family know that they probably won’t be hearing from him this evening — and heads for the door.

He’s more than ready to be on his way home to his bed, and he doesn’t have anything on his mind but sleep as he walks toward the elevators. And so, naturally, he’s not even a little bit prepared when the elevator doors open up to reveal Harry, standing alone in the lift.

He hasn’t seen Dr. Styles for hours at this point, and while the other man doesn’t look quite as overly tired as he feels, it’s obvious he’s headed home. He’s dressed in black skinny jeans, boots, and a thick coat, with what looks like a plain white t-shirt underneath of that. It’s certainly a change from the navy blue scrubs and the pink scrub cap that Louis has gotten used to seeing him in, and he resents it with everything he has, because it reminds him far too much of the first time he’d seen the other man.

Harry smiles the moment he sees Louis, looking as warm and soft and welcoming as ever.

Louis sighs, hardly feeling up to having this conversation right now. It doesn’t seem like Harry plans on giving him a choice, though, because he moves in just a little closer to him the moment the elevator’s doors close.

“You look absolutely knackered, love,” he says, and places a gentle hand on Louis’s shoulder. Louis promptly turns so that Harry’s hand falls from his shoulder, then, not willing to let it go on this time around. He puts on a stern expression as he faces the attending, fueled by determination.

“Harry, don’t,” he says resolutely. Harry blinks.

“Don’t..?” he urges, shaking his head as if he genuinely doesn’t understand what Louis is getting at. Louis groans aloud, then, closing his eyes for one quick, exasperated second. He runs a hand through his hair (which is certainly in need of a wash by now) and narrows his eyes as he meets Harry’s gaze once more.

“Don’t act like we’re _dating,_ ” he clarifies, doing his best to keep his voice firm. He’s needed to straighten things out with Harry all day, and he needs to get his point across _now,_ before Harry does something stupid, like offer to come home with him and cook him dinner. “We’re not dating, alright? And you certainly don’t need to be doing things like calling me _love_ , or making sure I get enough sleep, of all things — during my first shift, by the way, which is supposed to set the tone for the rest of my year here.”

Harry doesn’t seem particularly fazed by his proclamation; he doesn’t stop smiling, or look in any way crestfallen. Frustration bubble in Louis’s chest at that, because he doesn’t understand why Harry isn’t getting it. There’s nothing uncertain in the way he speaks to Harry; he’s being as clear as he possibly can, and yet.

“Of course I don’t need to do all of that,” he says, and takes a step closer to Louis. He winds up crowding him against the wall of the elevator. Louis catches his breath. “I do _want_ to, though.”

Louis finds himself a touch speechless with Harry in such close proximity, and he struggles to form a proper sentence for a good moment or two. He shakes his head eventually, though, and steels himself, pressing both hands against Harry’s chest and pushing him backwards.

“I’m not sure you’re understanding me,” he says, turning the tables and crowding into Harry’s space. It’s the opposite of what he should be doing, and the better part of him knows that. It only becomes more obvious that he’s veering down the wrong path entirely when a fire lights in Harry’s eyes, and his eyes fall to Louis’s lips. It’s back, then, that surge of heat up Louis’s spine, and despite what the better part of him is saying, he doesn’t let up on Harry.

“Want to spell it out for me, then?” Harry says, low, and something snaps. Louis backs him against one end of the elevator abruptly, hands firm on the other man’s shoulders as he presses himself close. His heart thumps just a little harder in his chest as he meets the pretty green gaze he’s been trying all day to avoid, and in the next moment, his lips are on Harry’s. 

It’s abrupt, and definitely reminiscent of the kissing they had done in Louis’s apartment the night before, when both of them had been drunk and horny and blissfully unaware. There’s an urgency in the way that he slides his hands to the back of Harry’s head and grips his curls, and he groans as the taller man’s hands settle on his hips and tug him closer.

He can’t say for sure how much time passes as they stand there, kissing like their lives depend on it. Everything seems to move in slow motion, and he’s not sure if it’s the fact that he’s absurdly tired or the way that Harry takes the reigns and kisses him slow and deep, like they have all the time in the world.He’s not sure if the kiss lasts twenty seconds or twenty minutes, but it’s not until the elevator chimes, indicating that they’ve reached the ground floor, that he startles and jumps back from Harry. He’s breathing hard as stumbles backward, shaking himself out of the stupor that the kiss had put him in and bending to collect his bag and his coat (both of which he’d dropped in the process of kissing his boss senseless).

He exits the elevator in a hurry the moment the doors open, barely giving Harry a moment’s notice before he all but sprints toward the hospital’s exit.He thinks he hears Harry call after him, but he doesn’t stop to consider it. He makes it to his car — which is clear across the parking lot — in record time, he’s sure, and he slumps back in the driver’s seat the moment he gets inside.

It’s only then that he closes his eyes and allows himself to burst.

“ _Bloody hell!”_ he shouts, hitting the steering wheel with one hand in an effort to expel a bit of frustration.

 _“Want to spell it out for me?”_

He swears once more. He’d sure spelled it out for Harry, all right. 

He sits there for a good, long moment, feeling a bit like screaming and a bit like crying at his whole _stupid_ situation. He doesn’t do either of those things, though — once he’s cleared his head enough to drive safely he buckles his seat belt and starts his car, pulling out of the parking lot as quickly as possible.

The drive home isn’t nearly as long as the drive in had been, and all in all, he’s home in about half an hour. The moment he steps foot inside his apartment he his things by the door and scrubs at his eyes furiously; he’s absolutely exhausted, without a doubt, and more than anything, he just wants to put this day behind him. He lets his back hit the front door with a thump as he kicks his shoes off, and he rests there for a moment before he drags himself into the kitchen.

 He’s still having trouble believing the way he’d lost it with Harry — he’d lost his composure, his professionalism and his purpose the moment the other man had _looked_ at home some kind of way, and he’s furious with himself. At this rate he’s not sure how he’s going to make it through the year, but right now, in this moment, he doesn’t want to think about it anymore. His own bed is within reach, now, and he has no intention of doing anything — least of all thinking about Harry— but sleeping for the next fifteen hours, at least.

But again, it doesn’t seem that Harry intends to cut him any sort of break. It’s not direct or intentional in any way, this time, but the moment he steps into the kitchen, it’s obvious that the attending had stuck around the flat after Louis had left, at least for a little while.

The kitchen is spotless. And while it’s not like it’d been dirty to start, it’s cleaner than Louis had found it when he had moved in. The counters have been wiped down and the dishes from the breakfast jaunt that had started all of this have been washed and set out to dry beside the sink. It looks as though Harry had taken the time to unpack a few of the essentials the morning he’d cooked for Louis, and not only that. He’d also left a plate out on the counter for him, with what looks to be a homemade breakfast sandwich, a bit of scrambled egg, and a side of hash. Harry had clearly left the food for him before he had been aware that his first shift at his new job wouldn’t allow him back home to eat the food until it was well past spoiled. 

There’s a scrap of paper beside the plate, too, which appears to have Harry’s mobile number scribbled onto it. There’s a short and sweet note written beneath the digits, telling Louis to give him a ring, and letting him know — in Harry’s own words — that he’d be _ecstatic_ if Louis happened to have any plans for a real date in the near future. 

And — and, _of course._

Of course he’d gone and stumbled upon the world’s most perfect man in a dive bar, of all places. And _of course_ said perfect man would also _just so happen_ to be his boss. 

He turns and walks out of the kitchen without bothering to pour himself the glass of water he’d gone in for. Rather than doing anything that might require thought or effort of any kind, he makes a beeline for his bedroom, and wastes no time in crawling into bed the moment he gets there.

Fuck this _whole_ day, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you're feeling up to it, drop me a comment or two. And come follow me on Tumblr at midsummernightsharry too, because I am never not in need of new friends.


	3. Oceans Away

_"I never felt a room so still, see the future coming, hope it isn't real._

_I learned to fake a smile as the time runs out._

_I don't want to wait."_

_-[ARIZONA](https://open.spotify.com/track/6A8dnC0xkiuWN4BshmTB2I?si=ZZOPumIKRm-_K1z9_ex3ZQ)_

☂

By the time Louis walks into the hospital the following morning, he feels like he has it together for the most part. He’d slept for a good ten, twelve hours in the end, and when he’d finally come to around 4:00 this morning, he’d made the decision to get out of bed and have a long, hot shower before going in to work. He’d come out of said shower feeling much better than he had when he’d first woken up, and around 4:45, roughly fifteen minutes before he’d left his flat, he’d gone into the kitchen and spent a few minutes putting away the dishes that Harry had left out to dry three days ago. Once that was done, he’d taken the plate of food on the counter, along with the note that had been left with it, and tossed both of them into the trash.

Between the time he had spent in the shower this morning and the few times that he had woken up throughout the night, he’d had a good, long think about his situation, and when all was said and done, he’d decided that he was going to ask Dr. Spencer today if there was any way he could be taken off of Harry’s service.

As invested as he had already was in the Parker boy’s case, and as much as he wants (and needs) to continue working in pediatrics, he knows that he doesn’t have the willpower he needs to work with Harry — not in a professional manner, anyhow. The attending had made it very clear yesterday that he had no intention of keeping things professional between them, and as much as he hated it, Harry’s very presence made him weak. The man’s voice, his smile, his touch, his smell — Louis had made it very clear to _himself_ that he couldn’t ignore any of it, and as much as he wants to keep working in the PICU, he’s not about to put his career (or worse, his patient’s lives) at risk because he can’t keep it together around Dr. Styles.

He’d given his mum a call on his way to work, too, just for good measure — not to talk to her about any of the things that had been going on, but to ground him. His mum had always had a way of bringing him back from the ledge, no matter how skewed the situation, and talking to her has a way of reminding him what’s important, whether she knows what his current crisis is or not. It’s always a somewhat therapeutic experience, even if he does nothing but spend the entire conversation listening to her talk about her day.

He’s one of the first to get to the locker-room on the second floor, and he spends the few quiet moments he has while he’s changing to go over what he’s going to say to Dr. Spencer in his head. He’s not going to bring Harry into the conversation at all if he can help it, because the last thing he wants to do is paint some any kind of tension between them. What he _is_ going to do is complain, basically. He’s going to act like an ungrateful intern, and tell Dr. Spencer that he’s bored of doing vital checks and wants a more exciting assignment. He’s not sure how far he’ll be able to carry the act, but he’s relatively hopeful; after all, he thinks it’s probably fair to say that he can’t learn much by checking the same three or four stats, on the same stable patient all day long.

He’s just gotten changed into his scrubs when the another person comes into the room, and when he looks up and finds Anna standing there, he bites back a sigh. When he thinks about it, it’s not the biggest surprise that she’s the first person here this morning; based upon the things she’d said at the start of their first shift, she does seem like the kind of person to show up for work as early as could pass for reasonable. She stops in the doorway for a quick second when she sees him, and she eyes him for a bit before continuing toward her own locker, where she proceeds to stow her coat and the rest of her belongings. She’s doesn’t look at him as she greets him — or half-greets him, rather.

“What, did you sleep here last night?” she says, clearly making her best effort to sound uninterested. The implication of her words, though — the unspoken _“did you sleep with Dr. Styles again”_ — isn’t lost on Louis at all, and he cracks a smile and shakes his head despite the fact that Anna is no longer looking at him.

“Nope,” he says simply. He watches her for a moment, attempting to gauge her intentions. She doesn’t give anything away, though, and he looks away when she removes her plain red t-shirt in favor of replacing it with her scrub top. “Got a good twelve hours last night. Just figured I’d get ahead of the game today.” He doesn’t bother mentioning that the reason he’d gotten an early start was because the sleep he _had_ gotten had been fitful at best; if Dr. Palomo planned on continuing her act of nonchalance, then he certainly wasn’t going to act as if she cared.

She only hums in response, and the pair of them are silent for the few moments that it takes her finish changing and throw on her white coat. It’s a bit of a surprise when she sits down beside him a moment later, and when he looks up, he finds her looking significantly less stoic than usual. Her arms are crossed over her chest, still, but she’s looking at him with what appears to be a shine of genuine concern in her eyes.

“I’m not one for the whole heart to heart thing —“ she begins. Louis snorts.

“Obviously,” he cuts her off with a smirk. She turns to smack him on the shoulder, then, obviously not in the mood to take his shit.

“Shut up, idiot,” she says, even though her expression definitely gives way to a good-natured smile. “I was just going to warn you… people are talking. Not seriously — not yet, but there is a buzz.”

Louis feels his heart sink in his chest at that. There had been a part of him that had figured as much, what with the way Harry had been acting out, but having it confirmed for him was a different story entirely. He nods his head a bit [belatedly](http://www.apple.com), and lets his gaze fall to his hands, fidgeting in his lap.

“I’m ending it,” he admits, quietly. He feels that it’s fairly likely that he can trust Anna, considering the fact that she’s chosen to warn him about the gossip surrounding him rather than selling him out to their entire class. “Today. I’m going to ask to be taken off of his service.”

Anna looks more than a little surprised at that; her arms fall from their crossed positionand she braces herself with her hands on her knees as she leans back in her seat, studying him intently. He’s just begun to feel like squirming under her gaze when she finally looks away, shaking her head and laughing softly.

“Shit,” she swears, and Louis looks up at her, then. “It must be serious, then.”

Louis sputters a bit at that, a touch astounded at how well Anna seems to be able to read him. There’s a small, fitful part of him that’s busy praying that he’s not this transparent to everyone, because if he is — if he is, he’s completely and utterly screwed. He exhales sharply, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before he explains himself, because while he’s not about to explain the gritty details of what had gone on between he and Harry, he’s not about to let Anna think that he’s heartbroken and lovelorn, either.

“I just — it’s not because I want to pursue a relationship with him. I don’t,” he says, and pointedly ignores the bitter taste that the words leave on his tongue. “But I can’t just — I can’t risk it, yeah? I’ve worked so hard to get here, and I’m already a step behind because I switched majors two years into uni.”

He stops himself before he can go on —before he can go and overshare any more.

“Anyways. I just… feel like I can’t keep it together around him. And I’m not willing to risk my entire reputation here for one good case,” he concludes, and Anna nods her head. She looks at him for a moment more, and near as he can tell, the smile on her face as she responds is genuine.

“I can’t say I don’t understand,” she says, smile withstanding as she looks away. There’s something sore in her expression as she directs her gaze to her lap, and Louis almost wants to ask her to elaborate. “That’s a story for another time, though — when I have more drinks in me than none.”

Louis laughs softly at that and nods his head. He _will_ have to grab a drink with Anna sometime, he thinks — it’s beginning to look like they have a lot more common ground than he’d originally thought, and it’s not like having another friend in the game is going to kill him, anyways.

“At least make sure my name comes up when you ask to be taken off of his service,” she says as she stands from the bench. “He doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge _my_ existence, so I’m pretty sure I’d be safe.”He can’t help but smile at that, standing alongside her and giving her a friendly nudge.

“I will, honest,” he promises, and Anna smiles at him as she pulls her mess of blonde hair up into a tight bun. She looks like she might be about to say something else, but before she gets the chance a few other people wander into the room and she promptly quiets down. The pair of them share a look, and then the conversation resumes as normal — the other interns greet them, and the lot of them launch straight into the conversations that they’d all been too tired to have yesterday afternoon. Niall and Liam arrive, eventually, and Louis settles into a conversation with the two of them, happy to engage in a bit of banter before he has to go about his day having serious conversations that, in all honesty, he barely has the energy for.

Ten minutes or so later it’s time for rounds, and each group either goes to meet up with their resident, or leaves the room when their resident comes and collects them. Louis begins putting up his front the moment Dr. Spencer enters the room; the conversation won’t happen until after rounds — or so he hopes — but he knows that it won’t hurt to prepare himself in advance.

Rounds are about as eventful as he expects, since almost none of them are assigned to cases apart from Louis. It’s a whole lot of discussing treatment plans for patients that none of them are actually going to be working on, which gives the whole thing more of a quiz-like feel than anything else.He’s just beginning to get bored with the whole thing when they head toward the PICU, and a burst of anxiety hits him like a brick wall. He hasn’t seen Harry since the elevator, obviously, and he hadn’t anticipated that he would need to — his entire plan had been dependent on avoiding Harry entirely, but like an idiot, he had completely forgotten about rounds.

“Alright, folks. Last stop,” Dr. Spencer says, and he takes a breath as they head toward the room he’d spent the majority of the past two days in and out of. He keeps his head down as the lot of them file inside and gather around Logan’s bed. There’s a cowardly part of him that hopes Harry simply won’t have come in this early, but — of course — he isn’t that lucky. He does his damndest to keep his expression neutral when he looks up and sees Harry standing there, even as sure as he is that it’s not the least bit convincing.

Before he can think much more about it, he’s being addressed by Dr. Spencer, and — and _right_. He’s actually _on_ this case, which means he’s the one who’s meant to give the group a rundown of the patient’s history. He acknowledges his resident with a nod, then, and puts his focus on his task rather than on Dr. Styles, whose eyes he’s been able to feel on him since he entered the room.

“Logan Parker, 7-year-old male with severe flail-chest, as well as tibular-fibular fractures resulting from a bicycle vs. motor vehicle accident,” he starts, going over the details of the chart that he had memorized in his first few hours with Logan. “The rib fractures have been stabilized using mechanical ventilation. The patient also suffered a minor brain bleed, which was repaired in surgery yesterday. The patient is still sedated, now, but he’s been stable since the craniotomy.”

He’s a bit out of breath by the time he’s finished, and rather than looking toward Harry, who speaks next, he looks toward Dr. Spencer. The resident offers him a smile (which he hopes is a signal that he’s done well), and then turns her attention to Dr. Styles. Louis sighs at that, and follows suit for lack of a better choice.

“Very good, Dr. Tomlinson,” Harry says, and Louis forces a smile. He avoids looks directly at the other man, still, but it doesn’t stop him from listening to his commentary; all things aside, he still cares very much about the wellbeing of the little boy he’d spent so much time caring for, and he can’t find it in himself to be sorry for that. “Logan hasn’t had any complications since his seizure two days ago, and all things considered, he’s recovering very well. We’ve been monitoring his brain activity closely since his seizure, and there haven’t been any discrepancies. However, Logan’s parents have requested that we lighten his sedation, just long enough to be sure that he’ll come out of the induced coma, and that there isn’t any possible deficits that the PET scan may be missing.”

Everyone in the group nods, and Louis follows suit. He can still feel Harry’s eyes on him every so often, and he does his damndest not to let it get under his skin (even though it _does_ ). Logan’s father is the next to speak; the boy’s mother doesn’t appear to be present today, and Louis has to wonder why that might be. He can’t imagine an employer horrible enough to tell someone they would need to come into work after their son had literally been hit by a truck, but he can’t even begin to know the Parker family’s situation, so he doesn’t think too far into it.

“Now, with the, uh — the sedation,” Mr. Parker says, not at all sounding sure of himself. Louis can only imagine. “Will he be in much pain, coming off of the sedation so soon? After everything?

Louis can detect in the way that Mr. Parker speaks that he’s putting up a front, trying to come off as confident, and ready, and sure. Nobody else seems to notice — at least, not so much that their reactions give it away. Perhaps Dr. Styles and Dr. Spencer can see it, but their reactions have clearly been trained by years of experience speaking to the families of loved ones. Louis, though — Louis resents the fact that he can pick out every telltale sign of that front falling apart.

Dr. Styles offers the man a smile, and he doesn’t look particularly swayed as he gives Mr. Parker his answer. Louis can only hope to be able to remain so controlled in situations like these, he thinks, as he watches the boy’s father clench his jaw and fight to keep his expression neutral.

“Logan is on plenty of medication to keep his pain to a minimum, and we’ll definitely be increasing the dosages on those meds as much as we’re able when we wake him,” he says coolly. “But even despite the medication, he may very well still be in some pain.”

Louis can’t help but wince at that. It’s a difficult thought, certainly — having to put such a young lad through such an unimaginable amount of pain. He knows that it’ll benefit him in the long run, and certainly the parents do as well, but it doesn’t make the idea of furthering Logan’s trauma any easier to swallow.

He can’t help but notice Mr. Parker’s sharp intake of breath, and it's then that he looks away. A sizable part of him feels horrible for even thinking of abandoning Logan’s case for his own petty reasons, but the better part of him knows that everyone will be better off in the long run. He can’t very well give his patients proper care if he loses the ability to think every time his attending looks at him a certain way, after all.

“Can we— is it possible to wait until his mom can be here to wake him up?” Mr. Parker asks as he drags a hand through his course, dark hair. The man doesn’t seem to hide his anxiety quite as well when his wife isn’t around, and Louis can’t help but feel for him. “It’s just. it was her request, and I just — I don’t —“

“We can definitely wait until his mum gets here,” Dr. Styles reassures him, and as soon as he says it, a good amount of the tension leaves the man’s body. “He needs as much support as he can get, and there’s no rush with this particular part of the process. For the time being, we’ll have Dr. Tomlinson continue to monitor Logan just like he’s been doing, and we won’t worry about anything else until Logan has both of his parents in the room with him.”

Louis bites back a sigh at that, not feeling any better about bailing on Logan’s case as the kid’s dad looks his way and smiles. That’s the shit part, he thinks — he’d spent a fair amount of time talking with Mr. and Mrs. Parker during the time he’d spent doing Logan’s vital checks and lab runs, and he’d built a certain amount of rapport, there. It’d have been one thing if he was only leaving behind the little boy, who he’d never actually spoken to, but the last thing he wants to do is give his patient’s parents the impression that their son isn’t _interesting_ enough to hold his attention, of all things.

It’s not much longer before they’re on their way out of the room, and Louis makes sure he’s tucked into the middle of the group as they file back out into the hallway. He doesn’t want to give Harry the chance to pull him aside, not now — he’s already made it plenty obvious that he can’t be trusted when it comes to situations that leave him feeling vulnerable, and he’s certainly not willing to let his resolve fall apart so quickly.

To his relief, Dr. Styles doesn’t even follow them out of the room — he hangs back, and when Louis chances a look over his shoulder, it appears that Harry is doing a vital check of his own. He can’t help but feel curious at that. He’s not about to jump to conclusions, but he definitely does wonder if Harry is consciously pulling back because he’d run off immediately after their kiss. There’s a part of him that’s relieved at the idea, and another part of him — the same part that had felt like a right prick this morning, throwing out the other man’s sweet note — that feels bad.

Before he can spend too much time feeling bad, though, Dr. Spencer turns her attention on the group, and the clap of her hands brings his focus back to the situation at hand.

“Alright, let’s get you all to work,” she says, and the five of them stand at attention. “We’re going to switch things up today. Drs. Payne and Palomo, the two of you did a wonderful job manning the clinic yesterday, but I want you both to have the chance to work with a patient in a longer-term situation. One of you can join Dr. Prendergast in neuro, and the other can head to cardio with Dr. Aoki. I’ll let the two of you fight that one out,” she instructs them, and Louis grins. He’s glad to see his peers getting assignments of their own, and the way that Liam and Anna side-eye each other like they’re daring one another to make a move is nothing short of amusing. He wonders offhandedly if Dr. Spencer might assign him to a different attending today, and save him the the effort of putting on a show — in lieu of switching things up, and all.“In the meantime, Dr Lane: you can spend some time in the clinic, today, and Dr. Horan, you’re going to be running the code team.”

Dr. Spencer’s lack of instructions for him speaks for itself, he thinks, and sighs inwardly. He’s fairly sure that his assignment will be “keep doing what you’re doing, Dr. Tomlinson”, and as bad as he feels, there is a tiny part of him that genuinely _is_ a bit bored with it all. Liam and Anna are arguing over specialties, now — because Anna wants in on neuro, but so does Liam — and Niall is loudly celebrating the fact that he’ll have some actual excitement to look forward to this shift.While the last thing he needs today is another conflicting feeling thrown into his already-mixed bag of emotions, he can’t help but feel just a little bit jealous.

He’s glad he hadn’t let himself hope he’d get lucky, certainly — and at the very least, the genuine envy will fuel his “ungrateful intern” act. He does his best to channel the itch of jealousy he can feel in his bones as he rights himself and turns to Dr. Spencer. He crosses his arms over his chest and cocks both eyebrows expectantly as he speaks up.

“And what about me?” he asks, not harshly, but definitely with enough of an edge that he manages to sound a bit put off.

Their resident turns to him, then, smile withstanding as she acknowledges him. “Right, Dr. Tomlinson!I’m going to have you stay on Logan parker’s case today. The parents seem to like you quite a bit, and you’ve been doing a fantastic job staying updated on his status.”

It’s exactly the response he’d expected, which works to his benefit — he has his response prepared already, and he’d like to think it’s fairly convincing when he sighs thickly and purses his lips. He even throws in a minor eye-roll, just for good measure.

“Isn’t there anything else I can do today?” he asks, and spares a glance toward Logan’s room. It just so happens that Harry is exiting the room at that very point in time, so he does his very best to be convincing. “I mean — I’m perfectly fine with doing vital checks, I am, but I don’t feel like I’m learning as much as I could be.”

To his surprise, Dr. Spencer seems to think that over for a moment or two. She doesn’t look to be upset at his request, and at first, it doesn’t look as though she’s going to give him any pushback. He’s just beginning to like his chances when she hums and shakes her head. “I think you could stand to learn some patience from this case in particular. But if you’re truly bored with the assignment, I can give you some grunt work to do in between those vital checks,” she suggests, and she’s smiling even as she shoots him down. It gives Louis the feeling that she would be a terribly unsettling person to deal with if she were truly upset, and he’s grateful in that moment that he hasn’t had to see that side of her.

He spends a minute or so considering his options, in the end; while adding to his workload rather than removing himself from Harry’s service altogether isn’t exactly ideal, it _does_ give him a far lower chance of running into the other man when he doesn’t have anything better to do than kiss him senseless in the nearest empty stairwell.

“Sure, yeah,” he says, dropping his arms to his sides and dropping his guard for the time being. He doesn’t actually want Dr. Spencer to think he’s being ungrateful, after all, because he rather likes being on her good side. “I’d be happy to do some grunt work. I’d just like to get a bit more practice in on things other than monitoring stable patients. That’s all.”

Dr. Spencer’s mask of professionalism seems to soften a bit at that, and she nods her head. Much to Louis’s disappointment, though, she turns to face Dr. Styles before giving him any further instructions.

“Dr. Styles, are you okay with me giving Dr. Tomlinson some scut to keep him busy today?” she asks. It’s obvious that she joking — probably looking to get a laugh out of Harry. That’s not quite what she gets, though; Louis doesn’t even have to look at Harry to know that his request to do something besides stand around the PICU has left the other man feeling more than a little miffed.

“‘Course,” he says, and when Louis does look his way, he finds that the attending isn’t even looking at them. “He is an intern, after all. Those lot are always eager to _branch_ _out_.”

The way Harry says the words makes it obvious that it’s a jab at Louis, and all things aside, he can’t help but feel a bit hurt.While the words aren’t biting so much as they simply sound defeated, it doesn’t change the way that they land, and for a split second he wants nothing more than to take the stupidly beautiful and kindhearted man by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. He doesn’t understand how Harry could possibly think that Louis wants nothing to do with him — the whole bloody reason he’s avoiding being alone with him in the first place is because he wants _everything_ to do with him.

He doesn’t say a word, though, regardless of how much he wants to.

“Alright, then,” Dr. Spencer says, and Louis puts his focus back on her. “Do you want to join Dr. Lane in the clinic, or run labs to and from the pit?”

It only takes him a second of deliberation to decide on the lab-running; he’d spent a fair amount of time in the clinic yesterday, after all, and he feels like he’ll be better off if he he can get the layout of the emergency room down.

“I’ll run the labs,” he says with a smile, and Dr. Spencer nods her head.

“Wonderful. We’ll leave the clinic to Dr. Lane, then,” she says, and looks toward Olivia, who looks rather proud of the fact that she’ll get to run the clinic on her own — well, maybe not on her own, but close enough, anyways. She waves them off, then, and they go their separate ways (apart from Liam and Anna, who are still bickering).

As he heads for the elevators, there’s still a sizable part of him that wants to give Harry a piece of his mind.He doesn’t do that, though — he doesn’t even spare the other man a glance.Instead, he forgoes the elevator in favor of taking the stairs, and makes the executive decision not to bother giving Harry or his passive aggressive commentary the time of day.

-

As it turns out, running labs to and from the emergency room adds a significant amount of work (and stress) to his day.

He learns quickly that the time he’d spent downstairs two days ago had _definitely_ been downtime; a good four, five traumas have come in in the past four hours alone, and between those and the vital checks he’s continued to run every hour, he hasn’t slowed down a single time since Dr. Spencer had sent him down.

He’s in between runs when lunch time finally comes, and rather than bothering with the cafeteria, he heads for the locker room straight away.He doesn’t think he’s going to be feeling up to seeing anyone for the next several minutes — or hours, if he’s honest.He’d seen Liam and Anna in and out of the ER anyhow, what with all of the traumas and the cardio and neuro consults that those had called for, and he’s sure he’ll see Niall at some point. Right now, though — right now, all he wants is to sit completely still for a good half hour. 

He makes himself comfortable using the only bench in the room as a makeshift cot, stretching one leg out long and propping the opposite foot up on the bench to arch his knee. He’d collected his mobile from his locker first thing, and he’s just opened up his messages with every intention of reading through every update he’d gotten from home since this morning when someone else comes into the room and bursts his pleasant little bubble of silence.

He can’t say he’s too bothered when he looks up and sees Olivia, though; the redheaded girl spares him a glance and a polite smile and goes about her business, and Louis has to wonder if it’s an indicator that her day has been just as busy as his own.Then again, though, he supposes it’s possible that she’s just not as talkative as all of the other interns in their class.

It’s the very moment that he turns his attention back to his phone that Olivia speaks up.

“These shifts are a marathon, not a sprint, you know,” she says, softly. “You should eat something.”

When Louis looks up, Olivia is looking his way, all kind brown eyes and gentle smiles. She’s munching on what looks to be a homemade chocolate-chip cookie, and she doesn’t hesitate to offer him one the moment she has his attention. He smiles and accepts the treat, sitting up and scooting to one side of the bench so that she can sit if she likes.

“Thanks, love,” he says. He’s pleasantly surprised when he bites into the cookie and finds that it _does_ seem to be homemade. He has to wonder where Olivia is finding the time to bake, of all things.

She smiles under the attention and nods her head, returning her attention to her own cookie for a moment before she speaks again.

“So, what are you doing in here by yourself?” she asks. It’s not the least bit accusatory; at least, not as far as Louis can tell, and he smiles.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he says, just to poke a bit of fun at his quiet colleague. Olivia only laughs, though, shrugging her shoulders.

“The clinic is busy today. More than one crying baby and a fair amount of patients who don’t actually want to take any of the medical advice that I’m giving them. I just wanted to escape the noise for a little while,” she explains, and Louis nods his head. 

“I guess I have a similar reason. There might be more blood involved in my story, though,” he says with a smirk. He hasn’t been hands-on with any of the patients that he’s seen come through the emergency room, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that some of them have had some fairly brutal injuries. He’d watched Liam go as white as a sheet at the sight of a young girl with a massive shard of glass lodge into her chest at one point this morning, and he’d had a bit of a laugh about that, certainly.

Olivia only hums in response to that, and begins nibbling at another cookie. The pair of them are quiet for a good couple of moments, enjoying their respective silence until Louis’s mobile chimes once more, indicating that he’s received another message from his mum.

He startles at the sound (because he hadn’t realized that he had never silenced his phone this morning) but the moment he realizes what it is, he breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes into his seat. He’s just opened up the messaging app when another cookie comes into his line of sight, and he looks up to find Olivia smiling his way once more.

“Family back home?” She asks as he accepts the treat, and he nods again. As much as this entire interaction feels like it could be verging on innocent flirtation, he does his best not to jump to conclusions; Olivia has been nothing but kind to him thus far, and the last thing he wants to do is offend her by making assumptions about her intentions.

“Me mum,” he says simply, smiling as he scrolls back through the string of text messages that had come through this morning, while he had been busy in the E.R.This was a habit that he and his mum (as well as the rest of the family, on occasion) had gotten into when he had left Donny for the states; the time change had made regular phone calls difficult to come by, so they had all adopted the routine of sending one another lengthy chains of text messages containing updates about their respective days. He always called when he could, of course, but the messages had been something that had stuck regardless of how often he could call home. He doesn’t think he’d trade it for anything — even if some of the updates are nothing more than mundane rundowns of his sisters’ everyday lives.

“That’s sweet,” Olivia comments, bringing his attention away from his phone once more.He’d just been reading a message from Lottie detailing a trip to the mall with the older twins, Daisy and Phoebe — apparently it had been a rough couple of days for everyone, and she and Fizzy had decided to cheer the girls up by taking them out and buying them each a brand new makeup palette. His chest tightens at that, and he makes a mental note to have a chat with his sisters the next time he calls home.

“It must be hard, being so far away,” Olivia goes on to say, and Louis sighs.He doesn’t allow himself to stop and think about it terribly often, because he’s certain that he’d drop everything and fly back home at a moment’s notice if he let the reality of it all get to him.

“It definitely is,” he confirms. His smile is bittersweet when he meets Olivia’s eyes. “You don’t think you’re going to miss your mum and your dad, or your house full of sisters — not until you’re living in a flat by yourself and it’s hard to get to sleep at night because it’s too quiet.”

Louis’s cheeks color the moment the words leave his mouth, because he doesn’t think he had meant to give out such a personal detail.There’s a soft bit of laughter from Olivia, though, and when he looks up again, she’s not looking at him anymore. She’s picking at her already-bitten nails instead, and her chap-lipped smile gives way to a hint of sadness.

“I know what you mean,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Louis studies her for a moment, unable to help but wonder what kind of baggage such a kind girl could be shouldering.

“You have family far away too, then?” he asks, patting the spot beside him once more. She’d never sat down earlier, but she seems to be getting increasingly restless as their conversation goes on, and he’s found himself wanting to offer her some comfort.

“You could say that,” she admits, and smiles at him as she takes a seat beside him. “My family is down in Oregon, which is only about three hours from here,” she goes on to explain. She meets Louis’s eye for a split second but looks away quickly, and something in his chest tightens at that. “The situation with them, though — it’s complicated.”

She doesn’t give any further detail, and despite his curiosity, there isn’t any part of him that feels like pushing her for more information than she wants to give.He merely nods his head instead, and directs his gaze back toward his mobile.

“I have some understanding of that,” he says, and sighs softly as he reads through another few messages. It’s rather fitting, he thinks, that the next message that catches his eye is a photo his mum has sent him of his youngest sister, sitting in her hospital bed. She’s smiling — because she’s always smiling — and she has her little arms slung around the shoulders of her twin brother, who’s sitting beside her.

“Yeah, well. I miss them, either way,” she says, and turns to look at Louis. Her smile is practiced, certainly, but Louis doesn’t pay it any mind; he only recognizes it because he’s used the same smile on plenty of people, on plenty of occasions. “You’ve got siblings, then?”

He smiles and nods happily, then. He certainly doesn’t mind sharing a few stories from home — it’s the most excited he’s felt about anything all day, in fact, and that’s saying something, considering all of the traumas that he had seen come through the pit today.

He settles in with Olivia and her chocolate chip cookies, and they spend the next fifteen, twenty minutes swapping stories about their younger siblings. He takes notice of the fact that the redhead never mentions her parents a single time, but he doesn’t bring attention to it. He’s doesn’t want to disrupt the moment, and besides, Olivia looks beside herself with joy talking about her younger brother and sister back home in Astoria. He’s not about to squash that.

Neither of them move from their spots until their pagers both start to chime insistently, and they don’t have any choice but to stash their phones and their cookies and their stories away to be revisited at a later date. He feels like he leaves the the locker room with a better understanding of the girl than he’d gone in with, and even though it hadn’t been a conversation he’d intended on having, he’s definitely glad that they’d had it.

-

He’s not sure if he’s on his ninth or tenth run up to the PICU by the time nightfall rolls around. He’s fallen into such a routine running between the E.R. and the PICU and the lab and the E.R. and the PICU and the lab that by the next time he walks into Logan’s room, he nearly doesn’t notice the boy’s mother sitting at his bedside.

He stops just short of the bed when he notices the woman — Clara, he’d learned her name was — and offers her a polite smile as he heads for the bedside table and sets Logan’s chart down there. He’s glad to see that his patient’s mother has returned; a part of him had been concerned that it might be much, much later before she would make it back, and considering the nature of what was going to happen with Logan, he very much wants to have it over with sooner than later. 

“Hello, Mrs. Parker,” he greets her, and then goes about his business. Temperature, blood pressure, pulse ox, incisions.

“Hi, Dr. Tomlinson. It’s nice to see you again,” Clara says with a smile. She has her hand resting upon her son’s forehead, which isn’t unusual. Louis has seen her do it a number of times over the past couple of days alone. It’s almost like she’s trying to will Logan’s brain to cooperate with them herself, and the thought makes him smile.He can almost see his own mum doing something similar with Dory, and it warms his heart.

“Likewise,” he says, and takes pause as he finishes up with his checks and reaches for Logan’s chart once more. “Your boy’s been doing well.Definitely still kicking, even after yesterday.”

Clara lights up at that, nodding her head and leaning to kiss the side of her son’s head.

“Collin has been telling me the same,” she says, sitting upright once more. “But it’s still nice to hear it from someone who has been through medical school.”

Louis softens at that, chuckling quietly. “Where is Collin, anyhow? I understand we’re going to be waking Logan up this afternoon,” he says, and Clara’s smile gives way to something a touch more bittersweet.

“He went to get a cup of coffee. I think he’s still having trouble with the idea,” she explains. “I just — I don’t want out boy going through anything more than he has to, not if —“ she cuts herself short, shaking her head as the words catch in her throat. “I just want to be sure we’re doing what’s best for him.”

“I understand,” he says in response, and rounds the bed in favor of placing a comforting hand on the tired woman’s shoulder. “I know it’s tough to think about waking him up when he’s going to have to be in pain. But you’re not doing it without a reason.”

Mrs. Parker nods along as he offers her what comfort he can without prompting any questions he might not be able to answer, and she meets his gaze again a moment later, smiling a watery smile.

“You’re going to be here, right? When he wakes up?” she asks, and Louis smiles at her. The ashy gray rings beneath her eyes are prominent even against her tanned skin, but the tone of her voice is hopeful and her dark eyes are kind as she looks to him for reassurance. It hadn’t been his ideal solution, sure, but he can’t help but feel grateful in the moment that Dr. Spencer had chosen not to remove him from this particular case this morning.Sure, the way things had worked out had added a significant running around to his day, but this moment is more than worth all of that.

“Of course I will,” he reassures her, and it seems to satisfy her. She looks toward her son with a warm smile on her face and a shine of tears in her eyes, and she moves her hand from Logan’s forehead to his cheek as she speaks to him softly.

“Hear that, buddy?” she says, and Louis can’t help but listen in as he collects the chart from the bedside table to return to the nurse’s station. “Dr. Tomlinson is going to be here when you wake up today.”

It barely makes any sense, he knows; it’s not as though Logan has even been conscious in his presence. But the way that his mum talks, like Louis is the most important person on the kid’s care team, makes his heart swell about five sizes in his chest.

It adds a confidence to his stride, certainly, and he doesn’t even let it get under his skin when he turns to leave the room and runs face first into Harry. He doesn’t pay any mind to their previous interactions today — he smiles at the attending, even, as he rights himself and moves to exit the room.

“Make sure I’m paged when you’re getting ready to wake him,” he says simply.

Harry doesn’t respond, not exactly; he just gives Louis an odd look that consists of a startled blink and a bewildered nod, but he doesn’t say anything more. He turns and heads into Logan’s room and Louis heads for the nurse’s station, and that’s that.

And this is how it should be, he thinks — he doesn’t owe Harry an explanation. He doesn’t have any real reason to feel like he’s broken the man’s heart, and that’s what he’s going to keep telling himself until the ridiculous coil of guilt in his gut unfurls itself, and quits flaring up every time he sees Harry.

-

Evidently it takes Dr. Styles some time either to set up to bring Logan off of his sedation, or to explain the process to the parents (or both), because Louis winds up down in the emergency room for a good amount of time after he leaves the boy’s room.

While the back and forth of it all is getting a bit redundant, it does give him time to catch Dr. Spencer and let her know that she’ll probably need to put someone else on call in the emergency room for a couple of hours. He had already planned to be up in the PICU for a little while, at least, but wants to make sure he doesn’t leave the E.R. short-handed, either.

He’s given the runaround for another fifteen minutes or so before he runs into a familiar face in the form of Anna, who he ends up crashing into as the both of them come around a corner. The petite blonde girl hits his chest with an _‘oomph’_ , and the armfuls of paperwork and labs that they’d both been carrying flutter to the tile between they stumble back from one another.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Louis says with a passive smile. He straightens his coat and bends to pick up a couple of the vials that Anna had dropped as they had collided. He’s careful as he separates the labs, making sure that none of their patients’ information ends up mismatched by mistake. “I thought for sure you’d have been scrubbing in on some big, fancy neurosurgery by now.”

She shakes her head, then, and takes the vials from Louis with a quiet scoff. “Yeah, no such luck on that front,” she says. “Not that there haven’t been any fancy neurosurgeries.The neuro guy just isn’t the easiest the easiest to win over.”

“Ah, Prendergast, right?” Louis asks, grinning as he recalls his first and only interaction with the head of neurosurgery. “I haven’t actually spoken to him yet, but he was on my kid’s case for a bit. He never stopped looking at me like I didn’t belong in the room.”

That prompts a snort from his fellow intern, who nods her head. “Exactly.He’s nice enough, but he makes it pretty obvious that he doesn’t trust interns much.”

It’s absolutely an accurate description, and Louis has to laugh along with her.He’s glad that his first impression of Dr. Prendergast hadn’t, in fact, been a figment of his imagination; he’d definitely felt like he hadn’t had any right to be in the room with his patient at that point in time, and the neurosurgeon’s daunting looks hadn’t made him feel any better at the time.

“We should all make a bet, I reckon,” he suggests, only half-joking. “Whoever gets to scrub in on a procedure first buys the rest of us a round of drinks at the nearest pub.”

Anna laughs brightly at that as she combs a hand through her thick, wavy hair.She had removed it from its neat bun at some point since the last time he had seen her, and Louis thinks errantly that she looks a lot softer like this. With her hair in a bit of a mess and a touch of exhaustion to lower her guard, she looks a lot less like the hardened workaholic that she puts out to be, but the look on her face is still skeptical as she responds. “How does a bet like that benefit the winner?” she asks.

“It doesn’t. That’s the point,” he clarifies, smiling a cheeky smile. “If you get to scrub in before everyone else, you’ve already won.”

“That’s a fair point, I guess,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. She eyes Louis for a couple of seconds as she stands there, and there’s an attentiveness in her blue eyes as she goes on. “Speaking of attendings, though — how’s all of _that_ going?”

Louis can’t help the way that his smile dampens at her question, but he continues to smile nonetheless.He had already damn near lost his resolve with himself, and he’ll be damned if he loses it with Anna, too.

“Touch and go,” he says simply, and breaks eye contact. It’s a tell, certainly, and he can feel her eyes on him, still, as he explains himself. “I’m staying busy. Keeping my distance as best I can.”

There’s a part of him that’s positive she can see right through him. He hopes otherwise, obviously, but the way that she continues to eye him reminds him of the way his mum would look at him (genuinely just _stare_ at him until he cracked) when he was lad, and he had done something that he knew was going to get him in trouble. If she does suspect anything, though, she doesn’t say so, and for that he’s grateful.

“Yeah, well. Let me know if you want to grab those drinks, bet or no bet,” she says, and Louis meets her gaze once more with a genuine smile and a nod of his head.

“Thanks, Palomo,” he says, and she responds with a light punch to his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah. Get back to work.”

It’s on that note that they part ways, Anna continuing on down the hall toward the lab, and Louis toward the stairs at the opposite end of the floor, just in time for his pager to begin vibrating on his belt.

-

Shortly thereafter, he finds himself in Logan’s room once more.He’d headed straight for the PICU the moment he’d been paged, and when he makes it upstairs, both of the kid’s parents are there.He steels himself the moment he enters the room, allowing the confidence that he’d felt following his interaction with Mrs. Parker earlier straighten his posture and neutralize his expression for him.

The Parkers are standing at one side of Logan’s bed and Dr. Styles is standing at the other.Dr. Prendergast stands beside Dr. Styles, and he has to assume that he’s here to run through a quick neuro check with Logan as he comes to.It also makes him wonder where Anna has ended up in the midst all of this; he’ll have to catch up with her later, he thinks, because he’s sure she’s going to want to give him grief about her attending disappearing and leaving her downstairs to do all of the grunt work.

“—so, as soon as I push the flumazenil into the I.V., Logan will start to wake. It might not happen right away, but once the pain and the adrenaline kick in, it could go from zero to sixty very quickly,” Dr. Styles has just finished explaining.

Louis’s gaze finds Collin and Clara’s faces as his attention is brought back to the situation at hand, and it’s obvious that they’re in their own respective states of disarray.Collin doesn’t look any less exhausted than the last time he’d seen him, and honestly, he still doesn’t look wholly convinced of what’s about to happen.Clara looks a bit more collected, maybe, but certainly more emotional than her husband as she concentrates on what Dr. Styles is telling her.

He finds himself hoping for both of their sakes that the whole ordeal isn’t terribly traumatic.There was always the off chance that they would get lucky — that they would be able to wake Logan briefly, and have the little boy not be in as horrific an amount of pain as they had all been anticipating.It’s not exactly likely, and he knows that, but he also knows that a little bit of optimism could never hurt a situation like this.

“We understand,” Clara says, holding onto her husband’s hand tightly.

“Alright. Are you both ready, then?” Dr. Styles asks, watching both of the Parkers with careful eyes, like he expects that one or both of them might change their mind at any moment.

“Whenever you are. Let’s get this over with,” Collin says. Clara leans to give him a quick peck on the cheek, then, and Louis can’t help but smile at that; it’s nice to see the pair of them leaning on each other for support. God knew, these kinds of things had the ability to tear a family apart in the blink of an eye, and he’s glad that the Parker family’s trauma doesn’t seem to have had that effect on them.

“Alright,” Dr. Styles says with a nod, and turns his attention to Logan’s IV line. They’d set the meds up before he had come into the room, and there’s a part of him that’s glad that he’d been able to avoid at least a small part of the suspense. The syringe containing the flumazenil has already been filled up and inserted into the line that up until now, has been feeding regular antibiotics and fluids into Logan’s bloodstream.

Louis takes a deep breath in the moment Dr. Styles picks up the syringe. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears as the medication is injected. His eyes track Harry’s movement for a brief second or two before his gaze falls on his patient once more, and he waits.

Nothing happens at first; it takes the medication a good moment or two to circulate, he knows, but it’s a minute or two more than that before anything significant happens.

It’s just as he’s beginning to get nervous that Logan isn’t actually going to wake up that everything changes pace.The first indication is a barely-noticeable flutter of eyelashes. The next is a soft grunt, which comes out soft and strangled due to the intubation. The little boy’s eyes open up a moment after that, and that’s the exact moment everything derails.

The moment Logan’s eyes open they begin to dart around the room frantically, and the grunting noises from a few seconds ago turn into something a lot closer to panicked choking sounds, and then strangled cries.

Mrs. Parker hones in on her distressed son at a moment’s notice, leaning over the bed as well as she can with Dr. Prendergast doing his best to hurry through a neuro check.

“Logan, buddy, look at mama.Can you look at me, sweetheart?” Clara says, at the same time Dr. Prendergast asks for Logan to look his way for pupil check.The little boy flounders, and it’s difficult to tell if he’s truly understanding what any one person in the room is saying, because the next thing he does is yell — or _try_ to yell.

He squeezes his little eyes shut and opens his mouth as wide as he can around the tube, and it’s akin to what any child might look like in the middle of a tantrum, except he’s not able to get much sound out. The only sounds that do come out wind up being terribly garbled, and it’s… horrifying, to put it lightly.

Clara tries for another moment to get her son’s attention, which throws Dr. Prendergast’s evaluation off entirely.The neurosurgeon takes a step back while Collin does his best to call off his wife, to no avail.Logan only continues to panic and struggle to cry out all the while (either in pain or fear or both), and it’s only another couple of seconds before Louis can’t watch it anymore.

He knows he doesn’t have the authority or the experience, he knows damn well, but he doesn’t let that stop him from leaving his post at the foot of the bed in favor of going to the Parkers’ sides instead.

“Clara, Clara,” he says, as calmly as possible over the little boy’s cries.When that doesn’t gain him any ground, he places a gentle hand on the distraught mother’s shoulder instead, just like he had earlier. It’s then that she looks his way, wide-eyed.“C’mon, let’s give him some space, yeah?He’s overwhelmed.It’s a lot.”

The suggestion earns him a sniffle or two and a shaky nod, and Clara’s strong front crumbles a bit as she takes a step back.Dr. Prendergast takes a hesitant step forward, then, eyeing Louis for a moment before he resumes his exam — or what of it he can.Things dissipate further with Collin, who doesn’t take his eyes off of his son the entire time Dr. Styles and Dr. Prendergast attempt to examine him — until he _does_.

“This was a bad idea,” he says flatly, and turns to leave the room without another word.There’s a choked sound from Clara, then, as she turns on instinct to go after her husband, but then doubles back, clearly unwilling to leave her son’s side. It’s then that Louis decides it might be time for a different plan of action. 

He waits until both of the attendings appear to have finished what they’re doing to take a step up to the bedside himself.He drops to one knee beside the bed, putting himself into Logan’s eye line and putting on a smile.Out of his peripherals he can see Dr. Styles go to pick up another syringe (more than likely to put the boy back under), but before he can put it to use, Louis turns and gestures for him to wait.

To his surprise, Harry seems to listen to him, even despite their track record today.He hesitates, but acknowledges the request with a clipped nod a couple of seconds later, and Louis gives his thanks in the form of a smile before turning his attention back on Logan, who he finds looking at him with wide, wet eyes.

“Hey there, Logan,” he starts with a smile. The boy continues to try and force sound out around his intubation, but his eyes remain fixed on Louis for the most part. “My name is Louis. I know you must be so, so scared right now, but that’s alright — it’s okay to be scared.Can you do me a favor? Can you nod your head for me if you’re hurting?”

He makes a point of nodding his head to convey exactly what he means as he speaks to Logan.It’s a moment in the making, definitely, but eventually those little brown eyes blink open and closed a time or two, and he nods his head as well as he’s able.Louis breaks into a grin at that, absolutely ecstatic to see Logan responding the question he had asked.

“Great job, little man! I’m so sorry you’re hurting, but you’re being so, _so_ brave.Just like a superhero, yeah? I saw those batman pajamas you were wearing, and let me tell you, Logan:I think you’re even _bigger_ and _braver_ than batman,” he says, making certain that he sounds mighty impressed.

Logan doesn’t exactly respond so much as he just makes a different type of sound, but a minor twitch of his lips indicates that under normal circumstances, he might have been smiling. He does a bit of wriggling about in his bed, and eventually, he nods his head once more; and honestly, that’s perfectly okay with Louis.

“My favorite superhero is Spider-Man,” he says, and just for good measure, he throws in a miniature web-slinging gesture.“Do you know who Spider-Man is?”

What he gets then is another, more prominent twitch of the little boy’s lips, which _is_ (he hopes) an attempt at a smile. Logan nods a touch more animatedly, then, and Louis laughs happily.

“Good to hear it!” he says, and shifts to give Logan a makeshift fist-bump, which really just consists of him bumping his knuckles very gently to the back of Logan’s open hand.“I’m gonna let Dr. Styles over there put you back to sleep, alright? So you can rest up, and when you wake up, you won’t be hurting so much. Sound good?”

Logan’s eyelashes flutter a time or two more, and he looks intently at Louis for a moment before nodding his head once more.

“Don’t you worry, alright? I’ll be here to look after you all the time.And Dr. Styles — Dr. Styles is something of a superhero himself,” he says, pointedly leaning in closer and making like he’s speaking under his breath about Harry’s “superhero” status.Logan blinks up at him once more before turning a watchful gaze on Harry, eyes wide.He can’t help but wonder what’s going through the boy’s 7-year-old mind, then, as he watches Harry pick up the syringe full of sedative, which he then pushes through the IV line.

It’s not long before Logan’s eyelashes are fluttering once more, and he’s back under within moments. Louis exhales, then, a breath that he’d definitely been holding the entire time he’d been interacting with the boy — and since this whole thing had begun, if he’s honest.

The room is quiet, and when Louis looks up, there are three different sets of eyes on him. The attention catches him off guard, but he tries not to let it affect him too much. He can feel his cheeks warm as he gets to his feet and brushes his hands off on his white coat, and he clears his throat as he steps back from the bed. He doesn’t say another word for fear of overstepping any further, and the result is a rather thick silence. The next person to speak is Clara, who hasn’t yet moved from the doorway.

“I’m — I’ll go and get my husband,” she says, quiet, and leaves the room in the next moment. He hopes he hasn’t overstepped any personal boundaries with the Parkers, certainly, because he had made their son a promise, after all.

“Not exactly a routine neurological exam, but I think it’s safe to say he’s alert and responsive,” Dr. Prendergast chimes in.Louis looks up to find the neurosurgeon’s eyes on him, and a smile on the man’s face.He’s not wholly sure how he’s meant to respond, right then, but he does manage smile back, and he takes an extra step back from Logan’s bed just for good measure.

“I’ll go and track the parents down,” Dr. Styles says a moment later, and stands from seat beside Logan’s bed. His voice is just as quiet as Mrs. Parker’s had been as she had left the room, and Louis tracks his movement with careful eyes as he goes to follow her.Dr. Prendergast acknowledges the situation as a whole with a thoughtful hum, and finishes a bit of charting for the Parker boy before he turns and follows suit.

He’s left alone in the room with the little boy, then, and he sighs.

“Just you and me, then, Batman,” he says, and takes a seat beside Logan’s bed, where Harry had been sitting previously.He’s sure Dr. Spencer won’t mind him staying out of the emergency department a little while longer; his patient deserves to have _someone_ at his bedside, after all, and he doesn’t mind filling the empty spot himself for a little while.

-

The next hour finds Louis sitting alone in one of the examination rooms, studying Logan’s most recent scans.Following the debacle that had come with the lightening of his sedation, it had been suggested that they take some repeat scans of his rib fractures to be certain that the stabilization of his chest wall hadn’t been disrupted. It had needed to be re-stabilized following his seizure, and even though he hadn’t exactly been thrashing about, Dr. Styles had wanted to be absolutely sure that everything was still where it needed to be.

Louis had taken Logan to have his films done, and the results had come back shortly thereafter — as had Collin and Clara.The two of them had come back looking a bit more collected than they had upon leaving the room, and Clara had eased his concerns about having overstepped earlier near immediately.The woman had come into the room and promptly gathered him up into a hug, thanking him tearfully for everything he had done, and when Louis had looked toward Collin, he had been smiling their way as well.

The entire encounter had left him misty-eyed, to say the least, so he had decided it was best that he hit the books for a little while, metaphorically speaking. He’d gotten ahold of Logan’s chart as well as his scans, and made for the nearest exam room to do a bit of studying.He’d let Dr. Spencer know where he was off to as well, and she, of course, had given him the go-ahead.It was definitely to his advantage that she hadn’t agreed to remove him from peds this morning, now, and he’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t appreciative of the time that his impromptu study session had given him to spend sitting down.

It’s quite some time before anyone comes into the room and disturbs him, and even when the door does open up, he doesn’t pay it any mind.At most, he figures it’s another doctor coming into the room to use the light boards or the other computers, so he doesn’t let it disrupt him from his task.

For once, he can’t honestly say that he expects it when Harry inches into the room and sits down in the chair beside him.It’s about the last thing he expects right then, and for a good couple of seconds, he’s not entirely sure how to act.

Harry doesn’t get too close, which is definitely out of the norm. It also enforces the idea that Louis had considered earlier — that Harry might have been consciously pulling back — and when he looks up to find that the other man isn’t even looking directly at him, it only furthers his suspicions. 

They spend a good couple of moments sitting side by side in silence; Louis has just finished noting their patient’s chart, and his hand hovers in midair over the table, pen still dangling from his fingers. Harry looks down at the table top, first, and then straight ahead for a moment before (finally) turning to meet Louis’s gaze.

The attending sucks in a breath as he meets Louis’s eyes, and Louis puts his pen down, then, making a point of focusing his attention on Harry. It almost seems like Harry is working up to saying something, and he can’t very well pretend that it hasn’t caught his interest.

“I — uh,” Harry starts, breaking eye contact with him almost immediately and beginning to fidget with his fingers. There had been intent in his eyes to start, but it was rather clear now that he was nervous.“I wanted to apologize.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Louis wonders if he’s waiting for him to respond.He leans back a bit in his seat and eyes Harry, feeling a touch skeptical of the situation as a whole. He almost wants to let Harry suffer in silence for a moment or two to pay him back for his comment this morning, but he doesn’t do that in the end. He _had_ told himself that he wouldn’t give Harry the time of day, after all — at least, not in a personal manner.

“Apologize for what, exactly?” he prompts. He keeps the tone of his voice as neutral as possible.It’s an active effort when it comes to Harry, and it’s especially difficult today; it’s been an emotionally charged day from the start, and — well.Louis already knows that he has a pretty poor track record when it comes to situations like these.

“I was childish this morning,” he admits, and Louis smirks.

“You were,” he says. Harry smiles too, then, the dry amusement in his expression mirroring that in Louis’s.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday, too,” he says next, and that really catches Louis’s attention.Harry is avoiding his gaze, still, as he goes on to explain himself.“I was pushy, and you were right — it wasn’t professional of me.I misread the situation, and I… I never meant to overstep any boundaries.I hope you know that.”

All things considered, Louis is stunned into silence for a good couple of moments. He hadn’t expected an apology from Harry for this morning’s events, let alone for anything that had happened yesterday.The way he had seen it, everything that had transpired yesterday had been his own fault as much as it had been Harry’s.He looks down at the charts in front of him, processing it all for a moment, and when he looks up again, Harry’s eyes are on him.He offers the other man a smile, in spite of all of his mixed feelings.

“I really appreciate that,” he says. There’s a nervous flutter in his stomach as he looks at Harry, and it almost, _almost_ makes him want to spill his guts right then and there. He wants to tell Harry how much he really doesn’t mind the gentle touches, and the genuine concern for his wellbeing, and the kisses — god, the _kisses._ He wants to tell him exactly how much he’d appreciated the attempt at breakfast the morning they’d met, and what an arse he’d felt like throwing it and Harry’s lovely note out; and most of all, he wants to tell Harry how much he’d _love_ to take him out on a proper date.

But he doesn’t.

Harry acknowledges him with a nod, and the next thing he knows, the man is looking straight ahead once more.

“I just… I got to thinking about it, I guess, and I realized I might have misunderstood your intentions — or your lack of intentions,” he says, and _no_. _No,_ Louis thinks. _You didn’t_. “And I’ll back off, yeah?”

It’s absurd; Louis knows damn well that it’s absurd, but every complication and mixed feeling and denial aside, he can’t help but feel just a little bit sad. He’s not sure if it shows in the way that he smiles at Harry, but he hopes that it doesn’t, for both of their sakes. Harry had come in here and shown him enough respect to raise a metaphorical white flag, and he doesn’t want to skew the situation any further.

“Thank you, Harry,” he says, soft, and he looks away from the peds surgeon, refocusing his gaze upon one of the x-rays of their patient’s rib fractures. The nervousness that he’d felt moments ago returns as he fingers the edge of the film, and this time he chooses to ride it out. “Just… please know that it’s not that I’m not _interested_ , alright?It doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

He hears a bit of soft laughter from Harry, and he smiles despite himself.He doesn’t look up, though — he doesn’t trust himself enough to look up. Not now. 

“I think I understand,” Harry says, and he sighs, because the tone of Harry’s voice doesn’t at all match up with what he’s saying. While he wishes that he could effectively explain himself, he chooses not to, and for the first time since the previous afternoon, he lets himself hate the situation they’ve ended up in with everything he has.

The pair of them are quiet for another moment as they sit there together, Louis looking at Logan’s charts without _looking_ at them, and Harry drumming his fingers upon his thigh and chewing at his bottom lip.It’s almost like Harry wants to say more, too, and the reckless part of Louis wishes that he would.The taller man does speak up, eventually, but when he does, it’s only to change the subject.

“That’s not the only reason I came to talk to you, though,” he says, and Louis perks up at that.He avoids looking up, still, but he does acknowledge Harry with a hum and a nod, urging the other man to go on. “Everything between us aside, I just wanted to tell you:You were _incredible_ in there, with Logan.”

Louis’s gaze snaps up at that, and his eyes are wide as he meets Harry’s gaze.If anything, he had expected to get a lecture for what had happened with Logan; he definitely hadn’t had the right to step in like he had, after all, and with Dr. Prendergast in the room?He had been positive he would get a talking to about the whole thing at some point.But he had never thought that that talking to would come in the form of _praise_ for him.

“I mean that,” Harry goes on to say when Louis doesn’t respond. “The way you talked to him in a way that you knew he would understand, and got on his level to do what we needed done?That was something I would expect from a third year resident, and you’re only in your first year.”

To say that Harry’s compliments had rendered him speechless was an understatement.He sits there, wide-eyed and silent for he doesn’t know how long, and after some time Harry looks at him and smiles. It’s then that it hits him that he should probably say _something_ , but when he tries for a “ _thank you”_ , all that comes out is a soft, astonished sound.Harry’s smile only grows with that, and he moves to set one hand on Louis’s shoulder before thinking better of it, or so it would seem, and withdrawing the touch.

“You’ve got a real knack for pediatrics.I can see already that you’re going to be a brilliant surgeon one day,” he says instead, and all at once, it seems, Louis is overwhelmed. A white-hot surge of emotion swells and crashes into him like a brick wall, and before he can stop it, there are tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and swelling along his lower lashes.He bites down hard on his lower lip and does his damndest to swallow the lump in his throat, and he tries to look away before the attending sees it, but it’s too late; Harry has already seen the crack in his composure, and in the next moment Louis feels a gentle hand settle at the center of his back.

“It’s a good thing, Louis,” Harry says, and Louis laughs wetly at that — both because Harry’s effort to keep his distance takes up an almost tangible presence in the room, and because he knows very well that Harry is complimenting him. 

“Yeah, I… I know, Harry.I’ve just been working at this for a _long_ time, right, and it’s… it’s my _third_ day,” he says, and laughs a bit more.He looks skyward and swipes a thumb beneath one of his eyes and then the other, whisking away the remnants of any moisture before turning and looking at Harry directly. “I was a theater major going to uni in New York, and I never _dreamed_ I would be in this position.I was already well behind everyone else in my class by the time I got to med school , you know?”

Harry’s eyes never leave his face as he talks, and he nods along. Something in his expression seems to convey that he _does_ understand, and it’s because of that something that Louis keeps talking.

“It’s just… a lot,” he reasons, leaning back in his seat (and into Harry’s touch). “And I’m just grateful that I’m not blowing it.”

He can feels the gentle press of Harry’s fingertips into his back, then, along with a gentle brush of a thumb along his spine, and he smiles. He doesn’t pay any mind to the casual way that the other man touches him; Harry is making an effort, he knows, and in this moment he’s not inclined to refuse a bit of comfort.

“Believe me, you’re nowhere _near_ blowing it,” he reassures Louis, and withdraws his hand a moment later in favor of brushing his fingers through his hair, which is a touch tangled — like he’s been fiddling with it just a little too much. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re going to make mistakes.But believe me when I tell you I could tell you some horror stories about my first week as an intern.”

That makes Louis laugh, and he thinks offhandedly that he ought to take Harry up on that sometime; when he’s having a particularly rough day, maybe.

He’s still and quiet as he lets the events of the past fifteen minutes sink in.Harry doesn’t get up to leave, either, and he has an inkling that he’s doing anything and everything within reason to prolong this moment.It hasn’t been lost on Louis, after all, the fact that whenever they’re alone in a room together it doesn’t quite feel like anything outside of that room exists, and he doesn’t particularly want to burst that little bubble of theirs, either.

It’s somewhat inevitable given the circumstances that he winds up reminiscing; he thinks back on med school, and on the call he’d made to his mum to tell her that he was dropping out of the theater program.She’d cried when he had told her, and he had never been sure if it was because he was theoretically wiping the slate clean with his college education, or because she knew somewhere deep down why he was doing it.He thinks back on every exam he’d ever suffered over, and every excruciatingly long night he’d spent awake into the early hours, half-gone and neck-deep in research that he couldn’t be sure would ever be of any real use to him.

His train of though comes to a halt with this particular thought, though, and quite suddenly, he looks up at Harry.He finds that Harry is already looking at him, and the last breath he had taken traps itself in his lungs as an entirely new idea hits him.Harry is smiling at him, and he knows — _he knows_ it’s wrong to take this particular in, but when he meets Harry’s eyes and he’s looking at Louis with all of the genuine warmth and kindness in the world, he can’t help but think: _Maybe._

 _“_ What?” Harry hedges, and there’s both a twinkle of hope and a touch of wistfulness in the way that he smiles. Louis feels a twinge of guilt at that, but he stifles it, and offers Harry a kind — and somewhat hopeful — smile of his own.

“Nothing, it’s just, there’s this thing I’ve been studying for a while, with gene-mapping and radio-frequency ablation —“ he starts, but stops himself before he can effectively word-vomit a full explanation. “Can I run something by you?”

Harry looks more than a little bit confused, initially, but he nods his head and gives Louis his full attention nonetheless.And Louis beams, then, unable to feel anything but pure, unbridled joy at being able to hand his half-baked, semi-valuable ideas over to someone with some real experience — and someone who was willing to listen to him, at that.

He gathers up Logan’s files and sets them aside in favor of turning his focus on his attending, and on the wild idea that he had spent real, honest _years_ of his life working on. For once, he doesn’t let it hurt him when his youngest sister comes to mind; he uses the visual of Dory with her mess of ginger curls strewn about a starchy white set of hospital sheets to fuel his pitch, and the idea of her tiny, 10-year-old body weakened by weeks of rigorous treatment to sustain his passion. 

And it’s not until Harry’s body language shifts, and he leans in to listen to what Louis has to say with a genuine interest stirring in his gaze, that he feels like maybe _something_ good could come of the topsy-fucking-turvy situation that the two of them had wound up in together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. All of your comments and kudos are very much appreciated, as always!


	4. Feelings

_"Spent the night, you got me high, oh what did you do? I'm hooked on all these feelings."_

_-[Hayley Kiyoko](https://open.spotify.com/track/27DxZkqTR2SHZTTfMRpUvW?si=yMp0Vc_ET7yGk9ZDS8XwTQ)_

☂

“Alright, Ms. Miano.I think I’m finished bothering you for now,” Louis says, smiling politely as he pulls Ms. Miano’s hospital gown down to cover her abdomen. He makes sure to pull her bedsheets back up past her waistline, too, because the hospital is almost always just a little bit colder than he really thinks is necessary. It’s regularly cold enough to give _him_ a chill, anyways, and he likes to do what he can to make his patients comfortable.

Ms. Miano laughs, sounding just as hoarse and tired as she always does, and nods her head as she relaxes back against her pillows. “Am I alright to go back to sleep, then, dear?” the old woman asks. Despite her condition and the obscenely early hour, a smile lights up her aging face, and Louis laughs softly, glad to see it.

“Oh, please do,” Louis says, mirroring her smile as he gathers her chart and his stethoscope from the bedside table and prepares to take his leave. “In my name, get as much sleep as you possibly can.”

“Thank you, dear. Don’t you work too hard, now, alright?” she says, and Louis grins as he watches her tug her bedsheets up to her chin, where they had been when he had come into the room. She’s always reminded him just a bit of his old nan, he thinks, as he goes ahead and turns out the lights so that she can rest properly. 

“I’ll do what I can,” he reassures her, and then slips out of the room without another word.He closes the door quietly as he goes, and he’s still smiling to himself as he finds his way back to the nurses’ station and hands over her chart. He particularly enjoys patients like Ms. Miano — patients who are pleasant with him for the most part. A good few of the inpatient folks he’s been assigned to round on have been downright ornery with him — and it’s not that he can blame them. It _was_ 4:30 in the bloody morning when he woke them, after all. It did make the start of his own day easier when patients didn’t cuss him out straight away, though, and he’s glad that today seems to be one of the better days.

He had thought at the start of his gig as an intern at Northern Heights that waking up at 5:00AM to be at the hospital by 5:30 had been bad, truly, but that had been before he and the rest of the interns had started doing pre-rounds every morning.Pre-rounds were… well.Pre-rounds worked exactly as their name implied. They were intended to be prep for rounds, basically, which meant a lot of early-morning charting and studying up for the interns, who were more often than not exhausted as it was. The one upside to the whole thing was that it helped them to be better prepared later on, when they would be shuffling from room to room as a group, and the attendings would be firing off back-to-back questions for them to answer. 

In the end, pre-rounds added about an hour of extra time to what had previously been his regular shift. It was less than ideal, definitely, because as long as he had lived, he had _never_ been an early riser. He did appreciate the advantage that it gave him during rounds, though; checking in on patients and bringing them their morning medications meant being familiar with their conditions — at least, adequately enough that he could make it through the next hour’s Q &A’s relatively unscathed.The questions really _were_ rapid fire more often than not, and while getting any one answer wrong wasn’t exactly a death sentence to his career, it _was_ embarrassing.

He and the other interns had developed something of a game when it came to rounds, in fact, as a result of that very embarrassment.The root of it all had been one of the first mornings that they had all been doing pre-rounds; Liam had gotten a few answers wrong during his first run in neuro and had spent the next hour or three beat-red and embarrassed as hell. The lad hadn’t actually spoken to any of them again until Anna had goaded him into it (as only Anna could), and Louis had offered to buy him a pint when they got off work that night.

The drunken conversation that night about Liam’s blunder had led to a drunken bet that, by some miracle, had been carried out the following morning.He still wasn’t sure how, exactly, they had pulled it off — between the pints and shots of tequila the previous night, he wasn’t sure how any of them had been upright the next morning, let alone partaking in a game whose rules had been scribbled onto a beer-stained pub napkin. The bet had stuck regardless, though, stretching on into the next morning and the morning after that. It would be more of the same this morning, he was certain, and if he was honest?He was rather looking forward to it, even though there was a good chance that he would be the losing party, when all was said and done.

Today, Louis was working in the cardio-thoracic care unit, which meant that today would be a struggle. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy working in cardio, because he did; it was every bit as interesting as any of the other specialties.His only qualm with it was that, for whatever reason, he couldn’t seem to retain what he was taught about it as easily as he could knowledge of the other specialties. He absolutely struggled in rounds the most when it came to answering questions about things like _atrial septal defects,_ or _cardiac conduction disease._

What was worse was he couldn’t blame it on the chief of cardio’s teaching style with the interns, either; in fact, as attendings went, Dr. Aoki was likely the one Louis was the most partial to (excluding the obvious, of course). The man was something of a phenomenon in the surgical world, with his long hair and his laid-back California attitude.Most of the surgeons that Louis had come across in his lifetime have had at least a _slightly_ starchy attitude about them, but Dr. Aoki wasn’t one of them. He talked to his patients like they were his friends and his equals, and the way that he treated the interns wasn’t much different. 

Whether he was asking Anna to borrow a spare hair tie because he’d forgotten to bring one of his own that day, making offhanded ( _hilarious_ ) jokes that Louis and Niall would laugh at for days to come, or going out of his way to be helpful and forgiving (see: reassuring Olivia and helping her clean up rather than tearing her a new one when she had been knocked into him by a passing gurney — with a full cup of coffee in her hands — at half six in the morning), Dr. Aoki was the most human of the attendings, by far.

He still contributed to their education when and where he could, of course, but he didn’t spend all of his time looking at them like they might set the building on fire at any given moment in time, like some of the attending surgeons had a tendency to do.

But even with the understanding and friendly assistance that Dr. Aoki offered, Louis couldn’t help but struggle in his specialty.God, cardio had never been his forte, not even when he had been a medical student, doing nothing more than slaving over his text books and doing his damndest to retain what knowledge he could about it.And now that there would be actual _lives_ in his hands, dependent on his competence with the human heart and all of its intricacies?He would need to be twice as adamant in his effort to learn all that he could.

All of it was certainly made easier by patients who were willing to engage with him, though — patients like Ms. Miano, who would smile tired smiles at him when he came to their rooms with their daily medications, and acknowledge his friendly banter with polite laughter instead of turning on him with faces like thunder when he inevitably wound up waking them at ungodly hours of the morning.

He’s just collected his next stop’s chart and turned to head for their room, giving himself a miniature pep talk all the while, when he runs face-first into someone standing nearby.

It’s something of a surprise when he steadies himself and looks up to find Harry standing there. The man is smiling at him, and he looks much too content for someone who had more than likely been paged out of his bed in the middle of the night, given the hour. Louis acknowledges him with a shake of his head, tucking his patient’s chart beneath his arm and eyeing Dr. Styles incredulously as he does so.

“Christ, you’ve really got to stop doing that,” he says, exasperated but smiling, still. Harry — no, Dr. Styles — scoffs at him, rolling his eyes as he does so.

“Doing what, exactly?” he asks as he falls into step beside Louis, who continues walking toward his next patient’s room despite the interruption.

“Appearing out of nowhere and scaring the bollocks off of me at indecent hours of the morning,” Louis responds.He doesn’t stop walking, but he does slow his pace (nonchalantly, of course) as he walks at Harry’s side. “Which — why _are_ you here right now?I’m fairly certain you’ve got the privilege of sleeping in.”

Harry chuckles lowly at that and folds his arms across his chest.It's something he does a lot around Louis since promising to act more professionally with him in the work environment, and while Louis has been actively working at _not_ entertaining any potentially unprofessional thoughts of Harry, he can’t help but feel just a little warm inside every time he notices Harry’s less-than-subtle effort to keep his hands to himself. And, god — it’s quarter to five in the morning. There’s no one around aside from a stray nurse or two, and he _really_ doesn’t have the energy to think about it right now.

“Any other day, maybe,” Harry says matter-of-factly, and drags a hand through his mess of curly hair - something else he does far too often for his own good. “But being an attending isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, sometimes. Especially not when you’re the one they page at 2:00 AM when someone needs emergency surgery.”

Louis makes a thoroughly disgusted face at that, appalled at the very idea.It’s a reality he’ll have to face sooner or later, he knows (given he makes it anywhere near that level in his residency), but right now?Right now it’s unimaginable.His shifts might be long and grueling, but they are _planned_ for the most part.

“Alright, understandable,” he says with a sympathetic smile in Harry’s direction. The attending returns his smile with green eyes as kind as always, if a little more fatigued than usual, and for a solid couple of seconds, Louis finds it hard to look away. He clears his throat and drops his gaze to Harry’s right shoulder, eventually, focusing his attention upon a wrinkle in the attending’s white coat, instead. He tucks his free hand into the pocket of his own coat to curb the desire he feels to reach up and brush aside that _one_ stray curl — the one that always seems to be falling into Harry’s eyes.

“So, uh — any word yet?” he asks, doing his damndest not to sound as utterly distracted as he is.The question is absolutely a half-arsed attempt at bringing the focus — his _own_ focus — back to his straight-and-narrow priorities, and if Harry’s soft laughter is anything to go by, that much is obvious.He shakes it off and smiles regardless, waiting patiently for the other man’s response.

“Not yet, unfortunately,” he says, and at that, Louis sighs.

It’s been nearly two weeks, now, since the night he had spent holed up in an exam room with Harry, explaining the research that he had done on his youngest sister’s disease in as much detail as he could manage. The following morning, Harry had taken what they had been able to gather in writing to the hospital’s board, because apparently, it was at least good enough to be considered for funding.It’s been radio silence since that morning, though, and it’s safe to say that with each passing day, he loses just a little bit of hope for an approval of any kind.

He had known going into it that it would be a long shot, of course; his research consisted mostly of half-written essays and ideas, and it had never been terribly likely that it would draw the attention (let alone the thousands of dollars worth of funding) of anyone from the hospital’s board.Not only was the whole thing a bit half-baked, he was also still in his first _month_ of work at Northern Heights.

He thinks he’d consider himself lucky if someone told him that his ideas would have even half of a chance at leading to some sort of funded project or clinical trial, because as it stood, the chance of any authoritative figure giving anything he said or did a second look was slim to none.The only reason Harry had taken the time to listen to what he’d had to say was because he was, well… Harry.And that was a whole other issue in itself.

The timing of it all is the most significant factor, he thinks; he has to wonder if he’d have had a better shot at it if he’d waited until his second year of residency, or even his third.By then he’d have developed some credibility, and at the very least, he’d have had some experience to play to his advantage. Not to mention the fact that it would have given him time to better develop his research, and to perfect the proposition of his research to the board. 

It would have been a more logical path for him to have taken, sure, but it would also have been two _years_ to wait — two years that, frankly, he couldn’t be sure that Dory would have left to wait. None of it changes the way that he feels about the situation, anyways, so he does his best in this particular moment to shake the feeling that he’s jumped the gun.

Harry must see the anxiety on his face regardless, though, because before he has a chance to say anything more, the taller man is leaning into his sightline and waving one hand in an effort to get his attention.

“Earth to Louis,” he teases. It earns him a startled blink, and he smiles a bit more brightly once he knows that he has Louis’s attention. “Don’t worry about it, alright?It’s the board. They’ve taken longer to approve the funding to replace a knackered MRI machine.”

Louis snorts at that, promptly taking his patient’s chart from beneath his arm and thwacking Harry on the arm with it. The surgeon’s response to this is a too-late dodge that doesn’t actually help him to avoid the hit, and a bit of happy laughter at having accomplished his goal to get Louis smiling again.

“Easy for you to say, you fancy attending,” Louis mutters, and begins walking again. He’s not entirely sure when it had happened, but he had definitely stopped at some point in the midst of their early-morning banter.Harry just grins, laughing still as he catches up to him once more with a few easy strides.

“I’ll just let them page _you_ out of your bed in the early hours of the morning, then —“ he begins, but Louis doesn’t let him get any further than that.

“You wouldn’t live until the next day to laugh about it, Dr. Styles,” he says, and points an accusatory finger in the other man’s direction.The attending laughs brightly, the oddest little bark of a laugh, and Louis has to bite back a smile.

“Really, though — I wouldn’t have taken your ideas to the board if I didn’t think they would consider it, yeah?” he prompts once he’s collected himself. Louis nods his head. “They’re _good_ ideas. And as of right now, no one has any better ideas when it comes to treating Li Fraumeni’s Disease.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, and his tone is soft despite the dismissive nature of his words.It blows him away, sometimes, how incredibly proactive about easing his worries Harry is — without even trying, sometimes.He files both his concern about the board and his lingering awe of his _boss_ away for later, though, and makes a point of gesturing vaguely over his shoulder, in the direction of his patient’s room.“I’ve got to finish pre-rounds.I’m working in cardio today, and I’m not about to be the one buying someone else’s drinks come pub night.”

Harry’s response to his dismissal is a brief raise of his eyebrows (likely because none of the attendings actually knew the details of the interns’ little game) and a nod of his head. He takes that as his cue to turn and head into the patient’s room, but Harry doesn’t let him go quietly — of course he doesn’t.

“Make sure you have something to eat,” he hears the man say, just as he’s opening up the door.He quiets his voice, then, so that no one but Louis will hear the next bit of what he says. “I’ve seen the inside of your refrigerator, and I know damn well you have all of one loaf of bread and a pint of juice at home.”

The statement flusters him a bit. He forgets, sometimes, that Harry has indeed seen the inside of his less-than-impressive flat. The other man is already gone by the time he turns around to respond, however, and what he’s left to deal with is a fluttering of nerves in his chest and a blush on his cheeks. He shakes his head, then, and does his best to disregard any lingering butterflies as he closes the door behind him and flips on the lights.

“God, will you keep it _down_?” the patient — an older gentleman who always demands to be called Mr. Chambers — snaps. Brilliant.

Louis takes a quick, private second to roll his eyes before he puts on the best bedside-smile he can manage and makes his way into the room. He opens up Mr. Chambers’s chart and sets it out on the table at the end of the bed, more than ready to get this particular exam over with.

“Sorry to wake you, Mr. Chambers,” he says, as always, and goes about his business despite the man’s complaints.They couldn’t all be Ms. Miano, after all.

-

“Great work, Dr. Tomlinson,” Dr. Aoki says, smiling proudly at Louis as he finishes running down the details of his final patient for the morning.“And what are the risks associated with an EVAR procedure?”

Louis falters at that. He still tries to speak, to get at least a partial answer out, but his tongue promptly (and inconveniently) ties itself into a knot.The resulting noise he makes is an embarrassing, stammered “ _uhhh_ ”, which he wants to bottle up and shove back down his throat the moment it spills out.

“ _HA_!” Niall exclaims unexpectedly, startling just about everyone in the room and serving to further embarrass Louis.

“Excuse me?” the patient’s parents ask, looking equal parts baffled and annoyed at the sudden outburst.Louis shoots Niall a pointed glance over his shoulder, one that all but screams _shut the hell up,_ before he turns his attention back on Dr. Aoki. He’s preparing himself as best he can for the scolding he may be about to receive, but the chief of cardio hasn’t stopped smiling, even despite the interruption. He takes some reassurance in that, at the very least, as he clears his throat and murmurs a soft apology.

“No worries, Doc,” the man reassures him, and then turns back toward the patient and her parents to give them the answer to the question that he had asked Louis. Louis, in the meantime, turns a quick and pointed glare on his friends, who are all much too busy snickering and high-fiving one another to notice him flipping them the bird.

“The most common risks associated with a procedure like this can include myocardial infarction, endoleaks, arterial dissection, and cardiac arrhythmia,” Dr. Aoki explains, and Louis watches as the patient’s young eyes glaze over. He smirks at that — he remembers that feeling all too well. It’s not another moment before his attending surgeon’s eyes are on him again, though, and he gives the man his full attention. “None of these things are likely to happen during or after your procedure, though. Can you tell us why that is, Dr. Tomlinson?”

It takes him a moment, it does, but the answer does come to him. He makes sure to slow down this time, so that he doesn’t trip over his words and make himself look like an idiot a second time this morning. “None of those things are likely because Amy is young — almost all of those complications have to do with a weakening of the body, or an exceptionally odd anatomy. As far as we know, Amy doesn’t have those risk factors.The only weak point that we’re aware of is the aneurysm itself, and that’s what Dr. Aoki will be repairing today.”

His answer comes out just as smoothly and professionally as he had hoped it would, and Dr. Aoki regards him with a nod and a proud smile.

“That’s exactly right,”he confirms, and then shifts his focus back to the patient and her parents so that he can further discuss the upcoming procedure with them. 

Louis acknowledges the praise with a tight-lipped smile; he knows full well that his performance this time around hadn’t exactly been outstanding (as Niall had made obvious), so he’s far from beaming with pride. He had done alright, though, all things considered. He hadn’t completely botched his rounds, at least, so he couldn’t be terribly upset — even if he _was_ more than likely going to be buying the drinks for the “winning” intern this weekend.

The patient — a 16-year-old girl — is smiling his way, and he returns her smile, even though it’s definitely a bit too flirtatious for anyone’s comfort. This particular girl had spent her fifteen minute period of time with him this morning questioning him relentlessly about his personal life, and it had been clear to him that it had been a valiant attempt at gaining his affections. He had made a point of remaining very professional throughout the conversation despite her awkward attempt to get to know him, though, because he couldn’t very well be a prick to her outright — no matter _how_ annoying it was to have every American woman with functioning ears ogling him like he was some sort of caged animal in a zoo. Bedside manner was one of the most important parts of the job, and besides, she was just a naive young girl. If nothing else, that had made it a little more tolerable.

The whole ordeal had made him wonder if there was any connection between the obsessive nature of these types of women and the fact that Harry had taken pediatrics as a specialty.Logically, he was far less likely to be flirted with so candidly when it came to caring for children; there were mums, of course, but a good majority of them were married already.And even if they weren’t already in a committed relationship, there was definitely something… a bit backwards about the idea of hitting on your _child’s_ surgeon.It took the air of fantasy away from the whole “hot doctor” situation, certainly, when there was more talk of superheroes and fairy dust and magic than there was of, well… anything else.

“Miss Amy here will be heading up to OR 2 for her surgery this afternoon. All in all, the whole thing should take about two and a half hours, and it should be smooth sailing from then on,” Dr. Aoki goes on to say, placing a hand upon the girl’s shoulder, and therefore bringing her attention back to him.Louis has a private laugh at that, wondering offhandedly if everyone else was as conscious of Amy’s fleeting crush as he was. 

“Now, that said — would you like to scrub in on Amy’s procedure, Dr. Tomlinson?” The cardio-thoracic surgeon goes on to ask, and Louis’s train of thought comes screeching to a stop.

Would he like to scrub in? Would he _like_ to?

“Y-Yes, of course,” he answers, maybe a bit too quickly. His cheeks heat up when his voice catches so obviously, but he doesn’t give it too much thought — he probably couldn’t if he wanted to. Right now, the only thing on his mind are the words _endovascular aneurysm repair._

Dr. Aoki only grins at him, as though he hasn’t just handed him the best day of his career so far, and nods his head. He gathers Amy’s open chart and hands it off to Louis once more, leaving him to stare at the newly-written progress notes inside of it without really comprehending them.

“Great! Make sure you spend plenty of time studying up this morning. I’ll see you in there — three o’clock.” Louis nods animatedly.

Bloody hell.He was scrubbing _in_.

He doesn’t consciously process much of the conversation that follows, and it’s not much longer before they’re all shuffling out of the room and into the hallway once more. The moment Dr. Aoki steps away, he’s bombarded by his fellow interns, who are all smiling and hooting and ribbing him enthusiastically. 

“Tommo, what the _fuck_ , mate!” Niall exclaims, at the same time Liam takes ahold of his shoulders and gives him a shake. Anna and Olivia are close behind, definitely quieter than the boys but still obviously excited on his behalf.

“I think that makes him the winner this week by default,” Olivia chimes in a moment later, and when Louis meets her gaze, there’s a kind smile on her face and she’s shooting him a wink.Her statement is met with a chorus of agreement from Niall and Liam, but Anna looks skeptical, still, despite the proud smile on her face.

“Unless another one of us gets to scrub in this week,” she says, and reaches to ruffle Louis’s hair. “Then the tie-breaker would still be the points from rounds.”

Louis can’t help but smirk at that; while Anna seems to have warmed up to the lot of them for the most part, she obviously has no desire to stifle her competitive nature. They’re all glad for it, anyways, because if it wasn’t for her their game would probably have fizzled out in the first week. He’s about to respond, but before he gets the chance, Dr. Spencer joins the conversation.

“Alright, everyone,” she says, edging her way into the group nonchalantly. “As much as I love your enthusiasm and the friendly competition, we do all need to get to work.That _is_ the only way any of you will get to scrub in, after all.”

This had been another somewhat new development:As the days had gone on, Dr. Spencer had fitted herself into their close-knit group as though she was one of them.She _wasn’t_ one of them, obviously, but she was damn good at making the lot of them feel like she was.If Louis was being honest, he wasn’t entirely sure it was anything but a teaching method on their resident’s part; a ploy to shift her odds with them in her favor. Even so, he couldn’t say that he minded it. Especially not when the interns from other groups joined in on their pub nights, and told stories about their own residents, who were apparently a lot… less friendly than Dr. Spencer, to put it lightly.

“Of course, Doc,” Niall says, smiling brightly as he turns his attention on Dr. Spencer. “Where d’ya want us today?”

Dr. Spencer surveys them for a moment, arms folded over her chest as her gaze flits between the five of them.

“Well, Dr. Tomlinson will be doing the obvious and studying up for his procedure with Dr. Aoki this afternoon,” she starts, and Louis smiles proudly — more so as his fellow interns mutter and groan at him, all in good fun.“As for the rest of you:I want you to continue working in the specialties that you’ve been rounding on.Dr. Drew has a few of his interns working in the clinic and covering the pit, so unless a massive trauma comes in, they’re not going to need anymore hands down there.”

The lot of them nod along, happy to follow their mentor’s instruction as always. That willingness doesn’t change the fact that their minds wander off in five different directions the moment they receive their orders, however. It’s not hard to pinpoint the moment it happens; the glazed-over look in their eyes is a dead giveaway that they’ve all checked out and begun planning the next several hours of their days — not that anyone could really blame them for doing so.

When it came down to it, working a full shift in any one specialty was a whole lot like rounding, but with a lot more hurrying between care units and the lab and radiology and supply on the attendings’ behalf.Surely when there were more critical patients in and out of each care unit things might be a bit more eventful, but for the past couple of weeks it had been quite a lot of looking after patients who were in for routine surgeries, and then seeing them off once those surgeries were through.

One might have assumed that this would have meant a better chance at scrubbing in for the interns, but regardless of how routine each patient was or wasn’t, none of them had gotten the chance to participate in any sort of procedure.They had all observed from afar, yeah, but there had been a unanimous decision amongst their group that being in the OR to _observe_ was a long way off from being a _part_ of it all.

As far as any of them knew, only one of them had actually had the opportunity to scrub in on a procedure.The intern had been someone from Niall’s friend Chelsea’s group — a girl called Diana.From what they had all heard, though, the whole thing had been a horrifying mess.

The “intern appy” that Niall had mentioned early on in their first shift had wound up being an actual event, but putting it lightly, it hadn’t been anything close to the honor that they had all thought it would be.

Following the disaster that had been the procedure, rumors had circulated about the whole thing having been set up to embarrass the intern chosen to do it — the apparent frontrunner.Those rumors had been indirectly confirmed for them by Dr. Spencer one afternoon, so naturally, they had all been a bit skeptical of being offered surgeries of any kind — even small ones. From what Louis had heard, Diana had been an absolute wreck following her failed appendectomy. Even though the patient had survived (obviously), they had still nearly died by her hand, and it was _more_ than safe to say that none of them wanted to wind up in that position. Not anytime soon, at least.

It had been clear after the fact that none of the attendings had any real intention of letting them do anything but observe anyhow, so a good amount of the paranoia among the interns had died down for the most part after the first week. Ironically enough, the whole ordeal had settled them all down quite a bit; they had all been observing for days, now, without a word about it.

Until today, apparently.

He’s patted on the back once more by both Niall and Liam as the group begins to branch off in favor of taking on their individual tasks for the day.Anna ribs him a bit more and Olivia flashes him a congratulatory smile, and in the next moment, he’s standing there on his own.Well, on his own apart from Dr. Spencer.

“Congratulations, Dr. Tomlinson,” she says with a smile of her own, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel rather accomplished when he notes a gleam of genuine pride in his resident’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he responds casually, even though the wide smile on his face certainly gives away his excitement.

Dr. Spencer walks away as well, then, leaving him standing in front of the nurses’ station alone.He waits a good moment or two after she walks away, standing quietly at the center of the near-empty cardio-thoracic care center.He waits until both his friends and Dr. Spencer are out of ear-shot, and as soon as he’s certain none of them will hear him, he lets loose a celebratory cheer.

A few of the passing nurses give him peculiar looks, and he thinks he hears Mr.Chambers grouch at him from his room to keep it down.He doesn’t let it get to him, though — he doesn’t think it could get to him if he _wanted_ it to.

Because he’s _scrubbing in._

 

-

The anxiety doesn’t hit until a few hours later. It _does_ hit him _—_ of course it does — even despite his initial excitement, and it hits him hard. As much as he’d like to say he’d been able to keep his confidence intact, he’s not even a few minutes into his practice at placing the stent graft when nerves begin to set in. 

He hadn’t gotten the procedure right on the first try, and it isn’t like he expected to; he’s never done this, for Christ’s sake. He’s only ever read about it, and about other people doing it, so it’s perfectly reasonable that his first go at it hadn’t been quite right. But when it comes to his fourth try, and then his fifth, and he still hasn’t got even one successful practice run under his belt, he begins to panic.

On his sixth try, when his attempt to guide the stent graft to its proper placement fails _again,_ he curses aloud and drops the leads.He’s nicked the wall of his test dummy’s aorta every time he’s attempted to place the graft.If the dummy was Amy — his _16-year old_ patient — it’d have bled out six times over, and he thinks it’s fairly reasonable for him to be feeling a bit paranoid.

For a good fifteen seconds, at least, he stands back and allows his fear of failure to cloud his thoughts.He’s got to process this, he does, because if he goes into the OR and he’s this overwhelmed, something’s bound to go wrong.And he’s not going to be the one to put a kid’s life in danger — he _won’t_ be.

He’s only just reigned his emotions in and started getting ready to have another go at it when someone pipes up from the doorway and effectively startles him out of his focus.

“Alright, Dr. Tomlinson?” they ask, and Louis turns toward the door with a surprised blink.Harry is standing in the doorway, as it happens, watching him with curious eyes and a careful smile. He’s carrying an armful of blankets and sick masks, apparently having been passing by the skills lab on his way back from supply when Louis had drawn his attention. Immediately upon realizing who it is that’s addressed him, Louis allows his controlled expression to dissolve into a frustrated pout.

“ _No,”_ he mutters, but doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready to admit his defeat just yet, but he’s certainly more comfortable being openly distressed in Harry’s presence than anyone else’s. His response brings a laugh out of Harry, and with a growing smile, the man backtracks and proceeds to join Louis at the station he’s been working at in the lab.

“What are you working on?” he asks, and leans over Louis’s well-dead test dummy to analyze its inner workings. It looks as though he might be trying to guess the procedure by the anatomy of the dummy, and Louis watches him for a moment before picking up the leads that he had dropped moments ago to busy his own hands.He looks away when Harry stops looking at the dummy and meets his eyes, instead. He clears his throat and fiddles with the release on one of the leads, then, making a point of focusing upon that.

“Endovascular aneurysm repair,” he says, sparing a quick glance at Harry.He sets one of the leads down in favor of fussing with his hair, and as he goes on he allows just a little bit more of his annoyance to seep through into his tone of voice. “Although I’m beginning to think I should never have agreed to do it.”

He hears Harry snort at that, and the next time he looks up the attending is straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well first off, congratulations — I hadn’t heard that you were scrubbing in on that one,” he says, and Louis laughs softly despite himself.He’s not necessarily conscious of the way his gaze falls to the taller man’s crossed arms, but he certainly _does_ notice the way that Harry’s grip tightens over his own biceps, just the way that it had in the hallway this morning.He looks away again, then, and picks up the second lead once more.There’s something in him that wants to forget, for a little while, where they are and what the implications would be if he just _let_ Harry touch his shoulder, kiss his cheek, or rub his back. Goodness knows he could use the reassurance, about now, but he also knows that it’s not fair of him to want it.Harry was doing what Louis had asked of him, and he couldn’t keep complicating it.

“Yeah, thanks,” he says, knowing full well that his response is more than a little lackluster for an intern about to scrub in on his first surgery. He spends a bit more time fidgeting with one of the catheters before he sighs and begins drawing it back, out of the dummy and toward himself.He’s got to keep practicing if he doesn’t want Amy to wind up with a shredded aorta, and because of his conflicting feelings, he’s not quite in the mood for Harry’s happy-go-lucky banter, or the distraction that it poses.

He expects Dr. Styles to go on his way, then, but he doesn’t; he only continues to stand quietly off to the side, with his eyes focused upon the test dummy’s makeshift arteries. Louis doesn’t pay him any mind, not really; he’s not going to get a bloody thing done if he lets himself be distracted by his own _pining,_ of all things. He only waits a moment or two to see what Harry’s next move will be before he puts his focus back to the task at hand.He’s preparing himself mentally, readying himself to give the practice-procedure another try, but he doesn’t get quite that far before Harry speaks up and breaks his concentration once again.

“Let’s have it, then,” he says simply, and Louis looks up at him, expression pinched with a bit of confusion and a bit of agitation.

“What the hell are you on about?” he insists, running short on patience. Harry only grins at him, though, disregarding his snippy mood.

“Show me how you’ve been practicing.I might be able to give you a few basic pointers,” he clarifies.Louis doesn’t look or feel any less bewildered, though, for obvious reasons. Harry was a pediatric surgeon. How could he possibly have helped him practice this procedure?

“What, have you got your cardio-thoracic surgeon cap on today, then?” he asks, equal parts bothered and curious when Harry only rolls his eyes in response to the prodding.

“If you _insist_ on knowing, I nearly specialized in cardio-thoracic surgery,” the man explains, and allows his hands to drop to the tabletop once more.Louis can hardly help but gape, obviously; how exactly did one _nearly_ specialize in cardio — and talk about it like it had been a passing fancy, at that — only to take a hard left into a pediatric specialty, instead? “Now go on — show me the ropes,” Harry urges him once again.

It takes him a moment (possibly two, because he spends a good bit of time staring at Harry like he’s both the most absurd person he’s ever encountered and the most interesting), but he eventually turns back toward the test dummy — Stan, as Louis had deemed him some time ago — and proceeds to make his seventh attempt at placing the stent.

It goes rather smoothly for the first couple of moments, even despite the way that his hands shake nervously in response to having his (so-far) unsuccessful technique watched so closely.He manages to guide the catheter upward and into the appropriate artery quite nicely, and it’s all looking great, just like his past six tries.And then comes the aortic artery.

The aorta is significantly wider than the iliac, and the moment he’s into the business artery there’s just too much wiggle room.The lead drifts one way, and when he attempts to bring it back onto its intended path, it veers too quickly in the opposite direction.The very end of the sheathing scrapes along the wall of the aorta and catches there — _again_ —and Louis wants to scream.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters through gritted teeth as he grips the leads tightly and begins trying to reverse what he’s done. It takes a good ten seconds, at least, for him to remove the catheter, and it tears another chunk of Stan’s artery out with it when it finally does come free. He sets the tools down, then, and sighs thickly as he turns toward Harry. “You see?He’s definitely a goner.”

The surgeon is silent for a good bit of time, and at first, Louis isn’t sure he’s going to be getting any pointers at all.It takes him a moment, but he does eventually turn to meet Louis’s frustrated gaze. There’s a sympathetic gleam in his eye and a gentle smile on his face as he does so, and Louis, in all of his frustration, wants nothing more than to smack the mildly patronizing look right off of Harry’s pretty face.

“The first thing we need to do is get you a new dummy to practice on,” he begins with a laugh.He then proceeds to remove both the leads and the wires entirely before picking Stan up and putting him aside.“Practicing on the same artery you’ve already nicked isn’t very effective — and not very realistic, either.”

Louis cracks a smile at that, unable to suppress the bit of self-deprecating laughter that escapes him as he works out the reasoning behind Harry’s suggestion.He watches Harry as he walks to the supply closet at the corner of the room to get him another “Stan”, and sighs as he spares a glance at the one he’s already mangled.

“Suppose you’re right about that.Can’t really tear a living person’s aorta seven times consecutively, can you,” he comments, and Harry nods his head.

“Exactly right,” he says as he brings the new dummy to the table and goes about setting it up the same way that Louis had set up the first. “Once you’ve already damaged tissue — even fake tissue — it’s a whole lot easier to damage it some more if you’re not extra careful,” he explains as he reinserts the first catheter and then the second.Once that’s done, he hands the reins over to Louis.

“Alright, once more, yeah?” he encourages, and Louis gives him a skeptical look, but nods his head and proceeds nonetheless.

He feels a bit like he’s being scrutinized, certainly, but he supposes it’s better that it’s Harry doing the scrutinizing (because he’s kind, and sweet, and _Harry_ ), than some other attending.Any other attending might not have been so patient with him.

He makes sure he’s steady on his feet before he properly takes ahold of the leads once more, trying all the while not to think about the fact that this is, officially, his eighth attempt.All of the genuine effort he makes only ends in more of the same, though, even despite the new dummy.

He bites back another curse.He’s frustrated — no, _more_ than frustrated.He’s just about ready to cry. He’s done small procedures on patients, sure:Sutures, central lines, any and all of that, but he’s never gone near an aorta before.He’s only in his first few weeks of his residency, for God’s sake, and he’s beginning to wonder if Dr. Aoki should even be letting him do this.If he fucks it up, it’s not going to be like Diana’s failed appendectomy, because it won’t have been a set up.It will have been his own incompetence, and he’s not sure he’d ever be able to show his face again if his patient were to bleed out through her aorta because of him.

The doubt he’s feeling must be palpable, because before he has the chance to spiral any further into the depths of his own mind, there’s a warm, familiar hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t get all in your head about it,” Harry says, and Louis narrows his eyes. He knows that he shouldn’t, but he feels a bit put off at that. He knows that it’s his own petty annoyance at the situation talking, but he can’t help but wonder if the pediatric surgeon even remembers what it’s like to struggle with such a basic procedure.He’d been an established attending already when Louis had arrived here, and he had never exactly given anyone any reason to believe he was new at his job.

“Bit hard not to, innit?” he says curtly.Harry only continues to smile, though, completely unfazed by Louis’s annoyance. It drives him mad sometimes, how — how _patient_ the man is. It’s obnoxious, and it makes him want to shout at Harry until he gives up trying to help and goes away. No matter how thankful he might have been for the guidance, initially, he wants to knock the attending clean off of his high horse, whether he’s riding it intentionally or not.

“I suppose you’ve got a point, there,” he admits, and Louis scoffs. He’s just about ready to get on with that shouting when Harry speaks up again, effectively curbing whatever sarcastic remark had been on the tip of his tongue, at least momentarily. “You’re right to be frustrated. But the reason I’m telling you not to worry yourself daft right here and now is because it’s an easy fix.You’re hardly doing anything wrong.”

Louis’s annoyance dwindles, then, promptly replaced by curiosity. There’s also a dash of what he would say is reasonable confusion, because what Harry is saying doesn’t make a whole lot of logical sense.He’s nicked the aortic artery eight bloody times; he’s got to be doing _something_ significant incorrectly. When his claim goes unacknowledged, Harry shakes his head and laughs; he’s smirking like he’s got some great secret to share, and honestly?Louis hopes that he does. He takes a step closer to Louis and reaches to pick up the leads himself, only to place them back into Louis’s hands.

“C’mon, go again,” he says. “I’ll guide you this time.”

Louis gives Harry a look, initially, but does as he says anyhow. He gets right to it (even if it is with an exhausted sigh) and guides the wire up into the iliac artery just like he’s done every time before. He’s so focused upon his task and getting said task done _right_ that he barely notices his makeshift mentor moving off to the side and then behind him, where he lingers as Louis works.He doesn’t actually become aware of Harry’s presence behind him until he’s worked the catheter into the aorta, and Harry takes a step forward, into his personal space.

“Alright, stop,” he says, soft, and Louis startles.He certainly hadn’t expected Harry to be so close, and that alone throws him off balance. Regardless, though, he does as the other man says and stops what he’s doing, stops moving at all.It doesn’t help his frame of thought much at all when Harry reaches around him and carefully grips each of his forearms, either, but he does what he can to keep his expression neutral. He can’t very well help the way that his heart begins to race in his chest, though, so he stays quiet.

“When you make it to the aorta, you’ve got to be careful not to over-correct one way or another. It’s a bit like driving a car on an icy road. If you over-correct, you’ll wind up spinning out,” Harry explains, and Louis bites down on his lower lip harder than is probably necessary when he feels Harry’s breath, warm upon the back of his neck as he speaks. “Keep going.”

More in an effort to keep himself on task than anything else, he begins to guide the leads once more on Harry’s command. The scope begins to drift once more, and he can’t help his reflexive instinct to try and straighten it back out — to keep it from piercing the arterial wall _again_. Before he can do anything, though, Harry’s grip on him tightens and prevents him from moving very much at all.

“Don’t over-correct,” he reminds him softly, and steadies himself behind Louis (read: moves even closer to him).Louis sucks in a breath and holds it, then, acutely aware of the way his body is reacting to the situation. It was unfortunate, really, how quickly annoyance could translate to arousal.

He keeps his hands as steady as he can and his eyes on the wire as he feeds it into the faux aorta. At one point Harry guides his hands very, _very_ slightly to the left, but that’s it, and a few seconds later — just like that — the catheter is sitting just where it ought to, right at the center of New Stan’s aorta.

Louis blinks at it, then, perplexed, because _how_ had it beed so simple? He spends such a long time looking at the successfully placed catheter that he forgets to take the next step altogether, and around the fifteen-second mark, he hears (and feels) Harry laugh quietly.

“You’ve got to press the release down, love,” he says, and reaches to tap Louis’s left thumb with his index finger.The small movement makes it that much more obvious how _close_ they are, and Louis exhales sharply as he triggers the release, maybe a bit too quickly.

He can’t be blamed for the way that he relaxes back against Harry, he doesn’t think, as he watches the stent expel from the sheathing, looking a lot like a little umbrella as it settles just where it should, lining the artery beautifully.He doesn’t realize for a moment that he’s essentially settled himself into Harry’s arms, but as soon as there isn’t a lead, or an artery, or a task for him to put his focus on, he becomes aware of it _quickly_.

Harry’s hands haven’t moved; he’s still gently holding Louis’s arms, and his broad chest is pressed up against Louis’s back, and it’s — it’s a _lot._ It’s too close for comfort (even though that particular phrase couldn’t be any less correct, because what really gets under his skin is the fact that he’s _very_ comfortable in this position).

He doesn’t move an inch, and it’s both because he doesn’t exactly want to do anything that might make Harry move, and because he’s fairly certain he’ll wind up doing something regrettable if he allows himself any wiggle room. Now that he doesn’t have a distraction, his train of thought has taken a different path entirely, and it’s… a delicate situation.

He thinks he should probably be concerned when the next thing he feels is one of Harry’s hands dropping from his arm to settle upon his right hip, instead.The thing is, concerned is definitely not the word that he would use for the rush of adrenaline he feels, nor for the way that his cheeks flush and the tips of his ears tingle. He can feel the frizzy ends of Harry’s curls tickling the nape of his neck when he shifts even the tiniest bit, and that alone is enough to catch his breath in his throat.

“Er — another thing you’ll want to keep a close eye on is your posture,” he hears the taller man murmur, and he can’t help but grin at that.It’s just such a _blatant_ excuse for Harry to touch him — not that he minds.He doesn’t mind at all. “If you’re too tense, it can throw everything off balance.”

He laughs softly at that, nodding his head as he shifts just enough to place his newly freed hand upon the table top in front of him.There’s no real intent, there — mostly, it’s just to keep him from doing anything else with it.God knows, he wants to; he wants to use every cheesy comment in the book. He wants to tease Harry, to ask him for suggestions to relieve any residual tension, and then reach to give his curls a cheeky tug when he blushes and stutters.He doesn’t do any of that, though. He can’t, because his logical mind is still very aware that they’re working — practicing. Practicing for _surgery._ Right.

“Yeah, yeah… all good advice,” he manages after a moment, opening up his eyes in an effort to refocus his attention (again) upon his upcoming EVAR. He’s not entirely sure when he had _closed_ his eyes if he’s honest, which says more about the effect that Harry has on him than anything else. There’s another soft bit of laughter from Harry — a laughter that sounds almost hesitant —and then he pulls away.And as relieved as Louis’s logical self is, his softer, needier side can’t help but feel cold at the loss of contact. 

“D’you want to give it another try on your own?” Harry asks after a moment, once he’s moved away from Louis. He reclaims his original position at the side of the table, and his arms are folded even tighter across his chest than before. Louis nods his head, ready and willing to get back to his practice. Even so, he can’t reign in the satisfaction he feels when he looks up and finds that his attending’s face is its own pretty shade of pink — that Harry is just as flushed as he’s sure he must be himself.

He goes back to work in lieu of saying anything else, though, exchanging his used up supplies for a brand new kit and ignoring the attraction he feels to Harry as best he can. The less rational part of him is still _very_ vocal; he wants to suggest that the other man stay close by, just in case, because god damn it, Louis has never not been a flirt.There’s no way he’d pass up the opportunity in any other situation.

But he doesn’t act on any of that, obviously.He simply goes about his task, reinserting the guide wires for the new catheter. That bit doesn’t take him more than a few seconds, and soon enough, he’s onto the grafting part of things.With Harry’s advice and the guidance that he had been given, the whole thing goes smoothly, and in no time at all the stent graft is placed.It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but he certainly hasn’t killed new-new-Stan, either.

“Beautiful,” Harry comments, and he pretends not to notice the hint of wistful fondness that he can hear in the doctor’s voice.He turns and flashes him a happy smile anyways, though, as he sets the supplies back down.

“Thanks, Harry,” he says.His gaze catches Harry’s and lingers, and what he means to do is convey his genuine gratitude. But Harry is looking at him like _that_ again, and Louis, in his current state, doesn’t exactly feel inclined to stop him. “I was definitely spiraling there, for a bit.”

“Anytime,” Harry replies, and in a change of pace, he breaks eye contact.“You’re going to do great, yeah?”

Louis acknowledges the encouragement with a thoughtful hum, still smiling as he returns his focus to new-new-Stan and begins removing the spent catheters from his faux arteries.

“I’ll need a bit more practice before I hit _great,_ I think _,_ but sure,” he says, and moves to put the dummy off to the side with the others.“Oh, and just for the record — you’ve got to be kidding me with that _nearly specialized in cardio_ story.Cardio is just…” he pauses for a moment, considering his words carefully. “Cardio is an absolute beast of a specialty. Usually people who specialize in cardio-thoracic surgery are the type that are dedicated to it from the get-go.”

Harry lights up at that, shaking his head and dissolving into amused laughter. Louis is glad for it; it had seemed that the curly man had been the one lost in thought for a bit there, and as much grief as he tended to give him, he doesn’t very much like seeing him any way but happy.

“That’s… a long story,” he says simply, cryptically, and Louis eyes him for a good moment or two before nodding and heading for the supply closet to retrieve another dummy to practice on. 

“Yeah, well,” he muses, focusing his attention upon Stan Number Four and repeating all of the steps that he had been through multiple times with the others. “You’ll have to explain it to me sometime, because I definitely don’t understand.”

It’s quiet for a bit, from then on; Harry stands at the side of the table with his hands tucked into the pockets of his white coat, watching Louis quietly.He’s not making any move to leave but he’s not exactly socializing, either, so Louis chooses to let him be (which is probably for the best, anyhow).

He gets clear to the point of inserting the next set of leads before Harry speaks up again.

“I could tell you about it over lunch,” he says, and when Louis looks up, he’s scratching at the back of his head and fiddling anxiously with the hair at the nape of his neck.That hushed and hesitant tone of voice has returned, and he’s not exactly looking at Louis as he speaks. It’s extraordinarily reminiscent of the first time (or the second time, technically) Louis had ever seen him, and he finds himself distracted once more. “If you’d like, I mean.”

He knows that his eyes are at least a little bit wide, because he’s nothing if not rubbish at concealing his emotions.He also knows that there should probably be at least a little bit of hesitance on his part. A second’s worth, at least.There isn’t, though —before he can even think about it he’s nodding his head and blurting out a hasty _“alright, yeah”._ It’s not _planned,_ not at all; he’s not even sure it had been what he’d intended to say, or if he had really intended to say anything at all. He doesn’t plan to elaborate, either, but when Harry meets his gaze and his eyes are as wide as saucers, he loses control of his tongue.

“I would like that,” he says, and smirks when Harry answers him with nothing more than a startled blink. “You’re a bit of an enigma, you know. It’d be nice to understand a bit of the mystery that is Dr. Harry Styles.”

It’s a moment or two before Harry stops looking shocked, and if he’s honest? Louis can relate.He does crack a smile eventually, though, and that smile only grows the longer they look at one another. It seems to have settled in with him, then, that Louis _wants_ to spend time with him, and he looks proper pleased at the fact.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” he says with a shrug, and takes a step back from the table, finally. “But you’re welcome to meet me in the cafeteria before your surgery today.I’ll try not to, uh… be such a mystery.”

The odd response steals a laugh out of Louis, and he nods his head. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Harry as he takes another few steps toward the door.

“Articulate,” Louis teases.

“Shut up,” Harry retorts, and rolls his eyes. “I’ll see you, alright? You’re going to crush it.”

He waits for Louis’s acknowledgment before finally turning and leaving the room, and leaving Louis to sort out what, exactly, had just happened.

It takes him a solid thirty seconds to understand any of it, but the moment he _does_ , he wants to kick himself.He wants to berate himself, more accurately, because he’s gone and done it again.He could play the lunch off as something friendly, of course, but he knows better than that — he definitely, definitely knows better, and so does the semi he’s been sporting since Harry had touched his hip.

He curses under his breath.He’s meant to be concentrating on his career, and on his research (no matter how slim his chances with the board were), and what does he do instead? He goes and agrees to a lunch date with his boss, who he’s definitely _not_ supposed to be entertaining a relationship with.Goddamn it.

\- 

By the time Louis feels like he’s done enough practicing, it’s been hours.He’s gone through he doesn’t know how many more practice runs before he even thinks to take a look at the clock on the wall. The only reason he checks the time at all, in fact, is because Niall barges into the room and breaks his focus.

The Irish lad had come into the skills lab somewhere between Louis’s last graft placement and the beginning of his practice with the fluoroscope, having said that he wanted to make sure Louis was still breathing.Since no one had actually heard from him since rounds, Niall — the kind soul — had come to him with two bottles of water and a bag of mixed nuts.

“I think everyone assumed you were distraught, mate,” he had said as he had opened the bag of nuts up and handed it to Louis.He was sure it didn’t help his case much that he had looked a right mess by the time Niall had come to find him.His back had begun to cramp from all of the repetitive motion and his lips were raw from the amount of time he had spent biting at them as he’d worked.He almost certainly had dark circles under his eyes as well, both from having woken up so early this morning and having spent so long staring down at mock-ups of human bodies. 

Niall had promptly insisted that he eat something(thus the mixed nuts), because it _had_ been lunch time, after all, and Louis’s procedure was set to begin an hour or two afterwards.

And lunch time… lunch time was another issue altogether, because he had maybe, possibly, consciously blown off his lunch plans with Harry.He hadn’t thought too much about it at the time; when Niall had made him aware of the time, there had been something in him that had perked up. He had _known_ that there would be a gorgeous, inarticulate, obnoxiously patient man waiting for him in the cafeteria, but he had talked himself out of going and meeting up with him straightaway.

Because it was lunch time, and Niall was here, and he couldn’t blow his friend off, could he? _“Sorry mate, gotta go. I’ve got lunch plans with the hot attending from peds,”_ wasn’t something he could just _say_. And Niall had gone to so much effort to make sure he was alright, too; there was no way he could just up and leave the lad hanging. That was what he had told himself.

Or, no — that was how he had reasoned with his conscious, because as reluctant as he might have been to admit it, he’d felt more than a little guilty standing Harry up.

He had managed to smother the feeling eventually, though, and in the end he and Niall had spent a good amount of time catching up in the skills lab over that bag of mixed nuts and a couple of granola bars. Niall had told Louis that there were brand new bets circulating; bets surrounding him and his big debut in the operating room, and who thought he would tank and who thought the opposite.

He would be the first to admit that the idea of people making bets about him and his outcomes made him feel… nervous (and perhaps a little nauseous), but he had been pretty well reassured when Niall had let him know that every intern in their group had bet in his favor.The chatter seemed to be more in his favor than against him, and apparently _Anna_ had even gone to bat for him.

 _“‘_ That’s one of us, you pricks, _’ she said.Swear on me life, mate,_ ” Niall had insisted. Apparently Dr. Palomo, with all of the aggression in her petite blonde body, had then gone on to cuss the group of interns who had been talking about him behind his back out — in _Spanish,_ nonetheless — and the lot of them had promptly gone quiet and taken their conversation elsewhere.

This was all according to Niall, of course, so he couldn’t be sure any of it had actually happened. The chance of Anna admitting any of this to his face was slim to none.

They all knew that the girl had a soft heart, but she would be the last to admit it to anyone. He likes the idea of it all, anyways, no matter what the chances of it being true were, and he counts himself lucky to have wound up a part of such a supportive group of people.

He would just have to hope that none of the bets that had been made in his favor were monetary, because if he fucked up — well.He would definitely end up out a fair amount of money. He would feel awful if his friends wound up losing out on his behalf, and there was no way he’d be able to let it lie. He would wind up paying them back in shots, or lunch, or — or something. He does make sure to remind himself that he’s not going to be responsible for the _entire_ procedure, though; there was no way, no matter how simple a procedure it was.

His mate had eventually been paged away to assist Dr. Jones in orthopedics, and Louis had realized in that same moment that he only had about another hour, hour and a half tops before he would need to get started on Amy’s pre-ops.It had taken some convincing, but he had managed to reassure Niall before he had gone that he would be alright on his own in the skills lab.

 _“You sure?Because if not, Liv offered to take the next shift,”_ Niall had said, and _that_ had made Louis laugh.

 _“I’ll be alright, Nialler, honest,”_ he had insisted as he had shooed the lad out. _“I’ve just got to get some practice in with the fluoroscope — it won’t be all that interesting to watch.”_

And he _had_ practiced with the fluoroscope — he had.A fluoroscopy wasn’t exactly a procedure that took very in the way of much time, effort, or skill, though, so he had wound up with about an hour to kill when all was said and done. He could have gone back to practicing the graft, sure, but he hadn’t exactly felt up to doing _that_ a thousandth time, so he had chosen instead to head to the lockers (as he often did) for a bit of quiet before he had to head up to the Amy’s room to prep her for her procedure.

Well — not _quiet._ Not exactly _._

The moment he gets to where he’s going and settles down, he dials his mum’s number and waits patiently as the phone rings once, twice.His mum picks up on the third ring, and she greets him enthusiastically.

“Hi, darling!” she says, and her voice is soft.He knows then that whoever else is in the room with her must be sleeping (because it _is_ 10:00 PM, London’s time) so he keeps his voice down as well.

“Hey, mum,” he says, smiling as he flips absentmindedly through the pages of the text book that he’s been toting around with him since rounds.“Sorry, I know it’s late.”

He hears her scoff at that, and he can see the dismissive wave of her hand clear as day in his head as she goes on. “Never mind that, love.You’ve got your surgery soon, yeah?” she asks, and Louis nods, allowing himself to forget for a moment that she isn’t actually in the room with him to see it.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.About an hour to go, now,” he confirms.She must sense the clipped tone of his voice as he speaks (and when doesn’t she, honestly) because in the next moment, her tone is as soft and motherly as he’s ever heard it.

“You must be nervous, then,” she hints, and he laughs softly, because of course his mum had been able to tell that he was beginning to feel the pressure and the anticipation of what was to come closing in on him like a vice.

“I’m terrified, if I’m honest,” he admits. “It’s like… it’s all _real_ now, yeah? And I feel a bit ill.”

“Oh, that’s just your nerves talking, love. Don’t let them get the best of you. You’ve worked harder for this than anyone I’ve ever seen, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re going to be fantastic,” she reassures him, never hesitating for a second. He smirks. 

“You have to say that, you’re my mum,” he teases her, and it lifts his spirits significantly when he hears her delighted laughter over the line. He allows himself to laugh along with her, to put everything else out of his mind, just for a moment. He’d never admit any of this to anyone else, he knows, but he feels so much better just having gotten it off his chest, and he couldn’t be more grateful for his mum.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been working your bum off,” she responds. “That counts for so much more than your old mum telling you what she’s known is true for years.”

It’s not exactly expected on his part, but her words prompt a swell of emotion that hits him like a tidal wave and puts a lump in his throat. He makes a face, scrunching his nose up an odd way and blinking a few times in quick succession to discourage the tears that he can feel prickling at the backs of his eyes. He doesn’t want to go into the operating room looking like he’s just had some sort of meltdown.Which —

“Fuck, I can’t believe I’m going to be in the OR, mum.It’s not like it’s even a major surgery, yeah?But it’s absolutely surreal,” he muses, and he feels a flutter of excitement in his chest as he vocalizes it for the first time since he’d been given the news. That excitement in itself almost enough to get him off of his arse and off to pre-op, but there’s one more thing he wants to do before all of that.

“Oi, mind your manners,” his mum scolds him, and he smothers his laughter with a hand over his mouth. It never fails to make him smile, the way that she still treats him like the rowdy 18-year-old that he had been when he had moved away from Doncaster. “I don’t care if you _are_ becoming a big-shot surgeon right before my eyes.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says as he stands and reaches for the last of the two water bottles that Niall had brought him earlier.He’d originally planned to save it for later, but he does need to get going soon, and despite his lack of thought about it throughout the day, he thinks that hydration in the operating room is probably a fairly important thing to consider.

“You’d better be,” she says, clearly just giving him grief, now.He finishes half of his water bottle off in no time at all and sets it aside as he makes for the other side of the room — namely, the mirror at the far corner, near the showers.

“Listen mum, I’ve got to get going soon. I want to be ready for the EVAR sooner than later,” he explains, propping his mobile between his cheek and his shoulder and giving his hair a quick ruffle. It’s sheer vanity on his part, of course, but the last thing he wants is to look a complete mess going into the operating room. He knows that this morning’s practice hadn’t done him any favors in that department, and he wants to make sure he’s as presentable as he can be before he gets going.“Before I let you go, though… is she awake right now?”

She hums thoughtfully, and the moment he hears it, he feels guilty for asking.It’s late, he knows — especially for a ten-year-old girl.It’s just… he’s definitely feeling like he might need things put in perspective for him today (as it seems he does quite often lately), and he only knows of one surefire way to do that.

“I can wake her,” his mum says, and he begins to backpedal the moment she says it.

“No, no, you don’t need to—“ he begins to say, but before he can get another word out she’s shushing him, and there’s a prompt bit of rustling over the line. Following the rustling, he hears his mum’s voice, even softer than it was when she’d spoken to him, followed by a series of soft grunts and groans that he recognizes as belonging to his youngest sister.

It’s a moment before he hears anything else, but the moment her voice comes over the line, she has his full attention.

“Achoo?” Dory says, soft and tired, and Louis smiles brightly.He knows, then, that his mum must have told her he was the one calling — the nickname that the youngest twins had given him years back was a dead giveaway.

“Hey, darling,” he greets her, turning away from the mirror and disregarding whatever else he had been thinking about.“It’s good to hear your voice.How are you doing?”

It’s a silly question, he knows.Dory was a ten-year-old girl living her life in a hospital, with a disease that was 98% fatal.But if he had learned anything about sick children in his twenty-eight years of life, it was that the last thing they wanted to acknowledge was that they were sick.

“M’alright,” she says, and he can just picture her rubbing at her half-closed eyes with one small fist and yawning into the phone.It’s not much longer before he hears her do just that. “Mummy got me ice cream today, did she tell you? Mint chip.”

He can’t help but laugh softly at that. It was just so amusing, so innocent, the fact that there were a million things his sister could have chosen to tell him about, and the thing that had taken priority was ice cream. “ _Oh,_ mint chip?I’m jealous, Dee.You know that’s my favorite,” he teases her, and she giggles.

“I did, I knew it! I told mum you would be,” she proclaims, and Louis does his best to ignore the way that his heart all but melts into a puddle in his chest as he takes a seat upon thelocker room’s rickety bench once more.

He doesn’t like to acknowledge it, but there had always been some part of him that had worried that his family would shut him out of their lives because he had moved away to the states. It was an irrational fear; the daily texts and nightly calls from all of them told him that much. It had never been an easy feeling to shake, though, especially taking into consideration the fact that it had been at least two years since he’d been home for Christmas, or for any of his sisters’ birthdays, or mother’s day.It wasn’t completely out of left field for him to feel like he was living a life entirely separate from his family’s some days, and it was nice to know, sometimes, that the lot of them still thought about things like his favorite flavor of ice cream.

“You’re just too smart, you are,” he says, and sighs dramatically, just for good measure.“You know me too well.”

Dory laughs happily at that, and as kids do, she continues to talk. She goes on to tell Louis all about her day and then about their brother’s, and she follows that up with stories about the project that Ernie has been working on in primary school. The conversation then shifts from Ernie’s homemade volcano to Lottie and Fizzy, and how they’d spent the past day or two fussing over her hair, styling it every which way they could think of and then some. She tells him all about the lovely bows and shiny tiaras, and how much it had made her smile, and Louis loves every bit of it.

She never mentions any of the sad bits.Of course she doesn’t, because they all already know that she can’t go to primary and do any projects of her own because she’s too ill, and that their sisters have been making every effort they can to make her feel comfortable with her ginger curls because they’ve begun to fall out again.She doesn’t let it get under her skin, though, not ever, and Louis takes note.He files each and every quirky little thing she says away to think about later, when he needs a smile.When he needs the confidence to push through a difficult situation. When he needs to be just a little more like Dory.

He’s not sure how long he lets her talk, only interjecting to react when she pauses and waits for his reaction or asks him a question. He knows that it’s quite some time, though, because the next time he steals a look at the clock, it’s just about time for him to be heading upstairs.He’s only got about fifteen minutes left, now, and he’s still got to check in on Amy and take care of her pre-ops before he can actually scrub.

He waits for Dory to finish her current story — an enthusiastic recollection of her first experience with makeup, courtesy of Phoebe — before he cuts her off.

“That sounds brilliant, sweetheart,” he says quickly.He doesn’t want her to feel as though he doesn’t want to listen anymore, not at all, but he knows his littlest sister, and he knows that if he doesn’t say his piece while he has the chance, she’ll have him here for another half hour. “But hey, I’ve got to get going now, yeah?I’ve got a big surgery today, and you should be resting.”

Dory squeals at that (clearly choosing not to acknowledge his suggestion that she rest), and he has to stifle an amused snort, because it’s definitely not the response that he had expected.

“Mummy, Achoo is having _surgery_?” he hears her ask animatedly, and he grins when her hears their mum in the background, shushing her and then going on to explain that Louis was going to be _doing_ the surgery, not having it.She only gets more excited at that, though, and the attempt to quiet her down doesn’t end up having much effect. “You’re a proper doctor!Like my doctors!” she exclaims, and Louis beams.The pride that his sister seems to have taken in what he was doing means more to him than any of the support that he’s received from anyone else, and that much was made obvious by the way that his heart promptly recovered from its previously molten state to swell three sizes in his chest.

“I will be, someday,” he says, and stands. He’s got to get ready to go, and soon — he’s down to about ten minutes, now, and he doesn’t want to be in any sort of a rush during Amy’s pre-operative exam. “Wish me luck, alright? I love you loads.”

“Good luck, Achoo! I love you!” she responds in kind, very loud and _very_ proud.The line goes dead after that, a bit unexpectedly, and for a moment he simply stands there, feeling just a bit overwhelmed.

It’s not because he’s sad, or nervous, or stressed — he’s not anymore, not really.It’s not even that he’s running a bit short on time, now. He’s not even thinking about that. It’s just… Talking to his mum is one thing, but every time he talks to Dory, he remembers exactly why he’s thousands of miles from home, doing what he’s doing. His eyes might be a bit misty, but his mind is perfectly clear, like it hasn’t been in days, and that had been _exactly_ what he had needed.

It takes him a moment to collect himself and get going, he’ll admit, but he does manage to put one foot in front of the other eventually. He has to, now; he’s down to the wire as it is, and he can’t be late today. Not to this.

His eyelashes flutter as he walks, and just for good measure, he swipes a fingertip beneath one eye and then the other. Once he’s certain he’s banished any tears-yet-to-fall, he steps out into the hallwaywitha smile on his face, and there’s a rejuvenated excitement in his step as he heads for the elevators, because _it_ ’s _time_.

-

It all feels like a bit of a blur, the period of time that it takes him to check in with Amy, to scrub, and then to convene with Dr. Aoki.Getting set up to head into the operating room isn’t much different; the whole process happens very quickly, and he’s got to admit, he feels a bit like a child playing dress up as the scrub nurses help him to put on the OR garb that all of the surgeons wear:The gown, the scrub cap, the mask, and the gloves.

It’s not to say that he doesn’t feel like he should be where he is.He does.It’s just… it’s surreal, just like he had told his mum. He’s beginning to sound like a broken record, he knows, but the idea that he was going to be participating in any of what was about to take place _still_ hasn’t solidified itself in his mind, and he’s not sure when it will.

He’s walking into the OR and taking his place to the left of the table — the assisting surgeon’s position — before he knows it, and it’s only then that his attending actually lets him know which parts of the procedure will be his responsibility. 

“Alright, Dr. Tomlinson,” he begins, and Louis can tell that he’s smiling behind the paper mask that he’s wearing. “I’m going to have you take care of the fluoroscopy while I place the leads for the graft.Then, once everything is where it should be, we’ll have you do the honors and place the thing.Sound good?”

Louis nods enthusiastically, and stammers a quick _“absolutely, yeah” —_ like he’s worried that Dr. Aoki will retract the offer if he doesn’t respond quickly enough. He knows full well that he sounds like a textbook eager intern, but in all fairness?That’s exactly what he is. 

Dr. Aoki responds to his enthusiasm in kind, however, offering up one elbow for a makeshift fist-bump.He gladly accepts, biting his lip in a half-arsed effort to contain the ear-to-ear grin he knows he’s sporting. He goes about the task of setting up, then, helping where he can and then setting up for the fluoroscopy, which in itself, is relatively simple.It’s a bit like setting up a standard IV using contrast dye rather than saline or medication, and of everything, he’s definitely the least worried about this bit.

It doesn’t take longer than a couple of seconds for the dye to get to where it needs to be, and soon enough, the C-arm is positioned so that they can see the entirety of Amy’s inner abdomen.The contrast dye lights her aorta up brilliantly, and Louis thinks that it looks a bit like a navigation system — like Google Maps, or summat.They can see the map, so to speak, in its entirety, but the fluoroscopy shows them the exact route that they need to take.It makes him grateful that he’d gotten some practice for this bit of the EVAR in, definitely, even if the actual procedure was quite a bit different from practicing with any variation of the “Stans” that he had used in the skills lab.If he had misplaced the IV and muddled the image, the whole operation would have needed to be postponed.

Once the fluoroscopy is taken care of, they’re off and running in no time at all.The most immediate difference that he notices between his practice and the surgery itself is the amount of time that the whole process actually takes.It’s one of the disadvantages of the skills lab, he thinks, that the test dummies are both far less fragile than living, breathing human bodies, and that they show you the path of least resistance clearly.

The human body was much more complex than that, obviously, because every single body was built differently.Never mind all of the “we’re all made the same on the inside” business — it was a good thought, sure, but any experienced surgeon would tell you differently in a heartbeat.

Just inserting the catheters and preparing the leads for the graft takes a good hour and a half in itself, which means plenty of observation on Louis’s part.Most of his responsibility following the setup of the fluoroscopy was keeping the area that Dr. Aoki was working on clear of blood.They were working with arteries, after all, and even with a minimally invasive procedure like this, there was no shortage of blood. 

He’s definitely glad that the EVAR wasn’t one of the procedures that required steady hands, or standing very still for any length of time — or at least, that his portion of it isn’t — because he’s already had to shift around an awful lot to alleviate the cramping in his back.In doing so, his gaze finds the gallery a good couple of times, and while it’s not _full_ , it’s not exactly _empty_ , either.He can see a few of his own, occupying a small section of chairs at one side, as well as a couple of the other interns he’s seen around.There are a few doctors and nurses he hasn’t seen before, and then Dr. Spencer, who he had half-expected would be here.

He’d like to say that it catches him off guard when his eyes wander to the opposite side of the gallery and he finds Harry sitting there, too. It doesn’t catch him off guard, not really — at the most he’s a bit surprised that Harry has showed up, since, well.Louis _had_ blown him off for lunch, and all. It does makes sense that he’s here, though, because he had helped Louis practice for all of this. However, that doesn’t change the fact that he feels the immediate urge to sprint out of the room the moment he sees the man and realizes that those green eyes are focused intently not on the fluoroscopy, or on what Dr. Aoki is doing, but on him.

He doesn’t sprint from the room, obviously; he makes a valiant effort not to visibly react at all, in fact. In the end he simply clears his throat and returns his attention to the task at hand, which, for now, still consists of cleaning the intermittent spurts of blood from around Amy’s incision site.

There’s another good bit of time that consists of guiding wires and placing leads, but the main event does eventually arrive. Before he actually has the time to process that it’s time — that it’s _his_ turn to take the lead — Dr. Aoki turns his way, still smiling as he nods from the controls in his hands toward Louis.

“Still feeling up to the task, Doctor?” he asks, and Louis feels an adrenaline rush like he’s certain he’s never felt in his life.It’s not the _bad_ sort of adrenaline rush, though, no; it’s quite the opposite. It’s the kind of adrenaline rush that he wants to dive headfirst into, like bungee-jumping, or sky-diving, or — or a select few other things that aren’t quite appropriate for him to be thinking about in this particular moment. He clears his throat and nods his head again, pointedly _not_ looking up toward the gallery for the man he knows is sitting there, observing quietly.

He feels a bit like he’s moving through jello as he trades places with Dr. Aoki, but as soon as the graft’s trigger is placed in his hands, it’s like everything and everyone in the room shifts, and the only thing that he can focus on is the procedure, his technique, and the patient in front of him whose life he’s about to change.It’s a whole new brand of tunnel vision, and he’s somewhat shocked to find himself feeling very calm, and very focused, because he can’t say he’d expected himself to feel anything but terrified in this moment. Maybe it’s that the excitement of what he’s doing has caught up to him, or maybe it’s because Dr. Aoki has already taken care of the difficult bits.He can’t say for sure, but he does know that what he’s feeling now, this visceral clarity and the buzz in his skull — he doesn’t even have a word for it.

“Go ahead and release the graft,” Dr. Aoki prompts him. His attending’s voice snaps him out of his state of hyperfixation, and he sucks a quick breath in before responding with a soft _“okay”._ There’s still a brief hesitation; ten, maybe fifteen seconds’ worth. His hands still tremble as he stands there, sparing a glance toward Amy’s young face and considering what he’s about to do. Eventually he takes the plunge and presses the release down quickly, before he can talk himself into believing that he’s going to do something terribly wrong and botch the whole thing.

He watches the monitors closely as the catheter opens up and the stent pops free.It’s a moment in the making, but eventually the graft opens up fully and lodges itself in place, lining Amy’s aortic wall perfectly.Louis exhales thickly as soon as he’s sure everything has gone well, and on instinct, he begins to withdraw the leads just the way he’d practiced.He doesn’t go any further than an inch or two; just enough that the leads and the wires are out of the way of the graft itself.

“Beautiful,” Dr. Aoki says from off the side, just a bit too reminiscent of the way that Harry had complimented him in the skills lab. Louis grins regardless, unable to help but glance up toward the gallery once again.He finds his friends (Liam, Chelsea, and Olivia to be exact) hooting and hollering, and he has to bite back a laugh at that.To his surprise, Dr. Spencer appears to be cheering him on as well. Harry is still there, too — of course he is — smiling brilliantly.He’s not cheering or applauding, but the excitement he feels on Louis’s behalf is clear on his face as he leans forward in his seat, watching intently.

“If you’d like, you can remove the leads, too,” Dr. Aoki goes on to say, and Louis falters at that. It isn’t at all what he had been expecting; the attending had taken care of the wires’ insertion in its entirety. He already knew what to expect. Why in the world would he allow Louis to take care of the rest? “If you know what to do, give it a shot. It seems like you’ve practiced.”

Right. He should probably, definitely have expected this. Especially from Dr. Aoki.

“I have practiced,” he promises, not at all wanting anyone to think otherwise. He glances Harry’s way out of the corner of his eye as he says his next words, and hopes that the man will know, somehow, that they’re intended for him as well. “All morning, and all the way through lunch time.”

“Then I trust that you know what you’re doing.Just watch the monitors, and if anything feels wrong, say the word,” the surgeon encourages him, and that’s all it takes.He’s still riding the wave of confidence that placing the stent graft had given him, and he uses that to avoid hesitating too much as he glances between the fluoroscope and the leads in his hands, and gets to it.

He’s got this.

 

-

About an hour and a half later, he’s back in the scrub room. He’s back in the scrub room, washing up and discarding his gloves and his gown and his scrub cap, and he’s just finished his first procedure. 

Well — his first _basic_ procedure. Assisted. Still, the swell of excitement in his chest is bubbling hot, and he can’t seem to keep the smile off of his face. He had bloody _done it._

Dr. Aoki had tidied up some time ago and left Louis and the rest of the OR personnel to tidy up the room, as was the procedure.He hadn’t left without stopping to give Louis an actual fist-bump, though, complete with a proud smile and a genuine congratulations. He had gone on his way to update Amy’s parents on her condition, then, humming merrily on his way out.

Everything had been taken care of already, for the most part; the OR had been cleaned up, the equipment had all been put away or sterilized and then put away, and Amy had been taken back to her room in the CICU.All that was left now was to make himself presentable, which wouldn’t take longer than a few minutes alone in the scrub room.He knew that his friends were bound to be waiting for him somewhere nearby, and he was more than ready to get out of here and celebrate with them.

He’s just finished washing his hands and righting his scrubs, and he’s about to be on his way when the scrub room door opens up and then clicks shut.

He looks up to find Harry standing there with a small smile on his face and his hands clasped behind his back. He smiles back at him on principle, unable to help his own giddy excitement — even if he _does_ know that what’s coming is likely to be something of a confrontation.He hadn’t bothered to school his facial expressions or his soft, excited laughter as he had helped the scrub nurses clean up the OR, either, and people were bound to start mistaking him for an escaped psych patient at some point. He can’t really bring himself to care, though, and he sincerely hopes that Harry can look past their botched lunch plans, at least for the time being. They _had_ promised to keep an air of professionalism when it came to work, hadn’t they?They could address lunch later.

“That was — that was just —“ he starts, and laughs happily again when he finds himself at a loss for words. “Why does anyone go bungee-jumping, or cliff-diving, or skydiving?Why jump out of a plane and risk your life when you can get the same feeling standing at a table in an operating room?”

Much to Louis’s relief, Harry's smile widens at that, quickly becoming an ear-to-ear grin that lights up his eyes and dimples his cheek.

“I guess they don’t want to sit through four years of medical school,” he reasons, and Louis snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Fair enough, I guess,” he says, and proceeds to toss the wad of paper towels he’d been drying his hands off on into the bin nearby. “But my point stands.That was _such_ a high.”

He hears Harry hum in response to that, and the next time he looks up, the man is leaning back against the door with his hands tucked into the pockets of his white coat.The expression on his face is unreadable as he watches Louis move back toward the sink; he doesn’t look upset so much as he looks… unsettled.Like he’s got something important he needs to say, and Louis’s excitement is keeping him from saying it.

It’s only a couple more seconds’ worth of loaded silence before he’s preparing to backtrack. He expels a bit of his lingering excitement with a thick sigh and a shake of his head, because he doesn’t want to come across thoughtless when he addresses the elephant in the room. Before he gets another word in, though, Harry speaks up himself, and there’s still a smile on his face as he does so.

“I can definitely tell you this:It never really changes, the satisfaction.There’s nothing like it,” he says, and Louis bites back the apology that had been on the tip of his tongue. “Some surgeons become surgeons because they like the idea of playing God, I think, but those of us without that complex… we need that high to keep us doing what we do.We’d all be scared boneless, otherwise.”

Louis hums thoughtfully at that. “It’s like a drug,” he suggests, and Harry nods.

“It’s exactly like a drug,” he says, “Because what we do every day is terrifying, when you really think about it. But we still do it.”

Louis nods his head at that, and for a moment afterwards, he’s quiet.He hadn’t exactly expected Harry to get quite so… existential.It’s not that he minds, not at all, because what he had been expecting had been agitation, and he was certainly grateful that that doesn’t seem to be the case.It is an interesting bit to think about, though, especially just having come down from the high of surgery himself.

“S’a bit twisted when you really think about it, innit?” he says offhandedly some time later, and looks up when Harry laughs softly in response to his suggestion.

“A little bit, maybe,” he admits.Louis smiles.

“Still, though, I don’t think I would trade it for anything,” he says, and moves to collect his coat from the hook on the wall to Harry’s right, where he’d left it earlier.The taller man hasn’t moved since he’d come into the room, but as Louis moves closer to him, he swivels to face him. “Not even theater.”

The next time he looks at Harry, the man’s expression has shifted from thoughtful to something distinctly fond.He doesn’t say anything for a good couple of moments, but the smile on his face says enough, Louis thinks — even if that unreadable expression in his eyes _is_ still present.

“I missed you at lunch,” he says eventually, and _there_ it is.Louis pauses, biting his lip as he considers the way that he should respond.He’s not entirely sure how to respond, if he’s honest. He decides to play dumb in the end, because hey — it _is_ at least partially true that he had lost track of time while he had been working in the skills lab.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I just got so preoccupied practicing for the EVAR—“ he begins to say, but Harry doesn’t let him get any further than that.

“No, it’s alright — I figured as much,” the taller man says, and Louis breathes a sigh of relief at that.He’s about to say more, to suggest a rain check (lord help him), but fortunately, Harry keeps talking. “I just had something to tell you, s’all, and I wanted to tell you before you went into surgery.Might’ve boosted your confidence a bit — not that you didn’t do a fantastic job anyways.”

The rambling catches him off guard, and Louis stares at him for a moment, a bit dumbfounded.He’s not sure what Harry is talking about, he doesn’t have the first clue, but the way that the attending’s smile grows into a wide, toothy grin is enough to make him more than a little suspicious.

“Thank you?” he tries when Harry doesn’t say any more. The taller man only laughs, though, a little bit louder and a lot brighter, and effectively confuses him further.

“Only problem telling you after the fact is your ego is going to be massive for a while to come, now,” he comments.With that, Louis has just about had it; he’s about to demand that Harry stop being so goddamn _vague_ when the taller man flashes him a brilliant smile and proceeds to drop a second career-altering bomb on his day.“Your research got approved, Lou.The board is going to fund it.”

His world stops, then.It’s something like the feeling he’d had in the OR, but at the same time, it’s entirely different from that.He doesn’t get an adrenaline rush so much as he feels his heart plummet to his toes, and then claw its way back upward to lodge itself like a boulder in his throat, instead.He thinks he stops he stops breathing for at least a few seconds, too, because there are pinholes in his vision shortly after he’s given the news.He can hear Harry saying his name, but he doesn’t respond. His tongue feels too heavy in his mouth, and he doesn’t think he would know what to say, anyways, because… _what_?

“Louis, this is good news, yeah?” Harry says not more than a couple of seconds later, and Louis hears himself chuckle at that, if a bit disjointedly.There are hands on his shoulders, then, and that’s what grounds him.He blinks once, twice, three times, and looks Harry in the eyes. He doesn’t allow himself to smile, not yet — just in case he’d misheard, somehow.

“The board is funding my research?” he asks. He’s aware of the smallness of his own voice in that moment, but Harry doesn’t seem to pay any mind to it.He only continues to anchor Louis in the moment, gripping his shoulders just a little bit tighter and nodding his head to confirm what he had said.

“They are,” he says simply, and an involuntary sound escapes Louis, something frantic and surprised and soft.He covers his mouth with one hand to stifle any additional sound, avoiding eye contact and shaking his head as he tries, again, to process it.

Harry is aware of the tears that have begun to fall from his eyes before he is, evidently, because the next thing he feels is a gentle brush of fingertips beneath his left eye, wiping away a bit of moisture.The surgeon’s steady hand doesn’t leave his face after the fact, either; he goes on to sweep his the pads of his fingers along the curve of Louis’s cheekbone, too, and then pauses to cradle his jaw, all kindness and concern and warmth.

It’s the moment that Louis meets Harry’s eyes, again, which don’t seem to have left his face once yet, that he really loses his composure.

The disbelief dissolves into acceptance which dissolves into the most intense gratitude he thinks he’s ever felt. The gratitude brings with it a whole new wave of emotion that has him rushing forward and wrapping Harry up in the tightest embrace he can manage before he even stops to consider it.Harry, of course, returns the embrace, holding onto him just as tightly, and he’s grateful for it. He _needs_ it.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and tucks his nose into the crook of the taller man’s neck. “Thank you so much.”

He hears Harry laugh softly at that, and it’s immediately obvious that he doesn’t quite understand what Louis is thanking him for. “It’s your research, love,” he reasons, and Louis can’t help but laugh wetly, shaking his head again as he feels one of Harry’s hands soothing circles into his back.

He pulls back a moment later with a sniffle, and he has every intention of explaining his side of things, because he really does need Harry to understand how grateful he is. However, the moment he catches the other man’s eyes, the words retreat from his tongue and dissolve at the back of his throat, leaving him thoroughly speechless as he tries to catch his breath. 

Harry is still looking at him, still smiling oh so gently, and the moment he’s able to again he cups Louis’s jaw in one hand, and… and damn it. _Damn it._

He only hesitates for a second before he leans in and kisses him. The electricity that’s been sizzling between them all day long crackles and flares in an instant, and if anyone were to ask, Louis would tell them that that very electricity had fried his brain in the moment.The kiss starts out as a soft press of lips and quickly grows frantic, and whether that’s due to the pent up tension or the raw emotion on his part, he isn’t sure.The only thing he’s certain of, now, is that he _loves_ the way that Harry touches him. He loves the way that he lets his free hand drop low and curl at Louis’s lower back when Louis braces himself with a hand on his shoulder, and the way that he tugs him closer when one of Louis’s hands tangles itself in his hair.

At some point both of Louis’s hands migrate upward and tangle into those curls, and when he feels the attending shudder, he only deepens the kiss — the heat and the desperation come to a boil as he arches against Harry, just trying to get _closer_.The softest of whimpers escapes him and spills against the attending’s lips, and Harry really lets go of his restraint, then, dipping his head a bit in favor of catching Louis’s lower lip between his teeth.He winds one arm and then the other around Louis’s waist, cradling him close and kissing his lips once, twice, three times in succession.

Harry kisses him passionately and thoroughly, and for a good couple of moments, he completely forgets where he is and disregards what’s going on around him.He can’t help himself, and he’s just about ready to take ahold of the collar of Harry’s white coat and either push him back against the scrub room’s door or push the coat off of his shoulders altogether, but before he gets that far there’s a crash from inside of the OR. The sound is loud enough to startle them apart, and Louis steals a quick glance off to the side, because shit — someone’s _had_ to have seen them. Harry doesn’t seem terribly concerned, though; he simply begins placing soft, kisses along Louis’s pulse, nuzzling and nipping as he goes.

And it makes Louis’s knees weak, it really does, but they aren’t supposed to be _doing_ this.Someone’s still in the other room, could come out and see them any moment and he just — he can’t.

“Harry, love,” he says, and falters a bit when Harry chooses that moment to bite at the patch of skin behind his ear. “Stop, we’ve got to stop.”

The other man immediately ceases what he’s doing at that, straightening up and fixing his gaze upon Louis.The green eyes that have been on his mind since the start of the day are a bit glassy and dark, and Louis can’t help but feel badly, the moment he sees it.

“I, uh. I didn’t mean to do that,” he murmurs, and the space between them is still so small that he can feel his own words echo back to him. He breaks their embrace and takes a step back from Harry, then, making every effort he can to distance himself physically and mentally.“We can’t— Jesus, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

He knows the moment the words leave his mouth that it’s a lie, and he turns away from Harry, then, to hide the guilty expression he knows he’s wearing.He feels like an even bigger prick, somehow, when the other man exhales, clearly rattled, and then groans softly.

“‘Course not,” he hears Harry murmur.It stings, definitely, but he knows that he’s the one at fault, here; he had kissed Harry, not the other way around.Harry had every right in the world to be upset with him, and he wasn’t going to fight that. He would shoulder the blame, this time, for having let his feelings complicate things.

He takes a quick moment to school his expression before he turns back around to face the other man, but keeping his cool proves to be difficult, still. Harry is an open book; his cheeks are flushed red and his expression is pinched with what he recognizes as a dash of arousal and a dash of frustration, and for a good moment or two he refuses to meet Louis’s eyes. Louis can’t really blame him for that much, he supposes. He doesn’t think he’d be too keen on keeping things civil if he were in Harry’s shoes about now.

“All the same, I… I wouldn’t have made it to this point without your help,” he tries.It’s an awkward attempt at maintaining the conversation they’d been having previously, he knows, but he’s got to _try_ , at least.“It might be my research, but you took the time to listen to it, yeah?”

Harry nods his head, quiet for a moment as he stands in front of Louis.He does look up eventually, though, and when he does, he’s smiling halfheartedly.

“Anyone with a brain would’ve done the same thing I did,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “They’re brilliant ideas.I didn’t need the board to tell me that.”

He’s begun to straighten his clothing by the time he’s finished speaking, and Louis mirrors him, combing his hands through his hair and straightening his scrub top.He doesn’t miss the way that Harry wraps his coat a little more tightly around himself, effectively closing it at the front and covering up his bottom half.He blushes and clears his throat at that, making a point of looking someplace else as he straightens his own coat.

“Will I be allowed to be involved?” he asks, next. As much as it’s an attempt to cool things between them down, he’s genuinely curious, because it’s his research and all, sure, but even so, he _is_ just an intern. How much was the board of a prestigious hospital _really_ going to trust him with?

When it comes down to it, he’s studied all of the processes and procedures included in his research, but he hasn’t the first clue how to execute them; he knows what they are, and the purposes that they serve, but they’re nothing but ideas on his part.He doesn’t have the proper training to do anything but make suggestions, at this point, and he wonders if the board will see any real use for him.

“I don’t know, Doctor,” Harry says, and he blinks.There’s something different in the tone of his voice, something… lighthearted, and when Louis chances a look at him, he finds that he’s smiling a bit more genuinely. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think I was playing favorites with my interns, would we?”

If it weren’t for the tone of Harry’s voice he would have assumed the comment was sarcastic, but it’s clearly just a bit of banter, and the banter is so… so _unexpected_ that Louis can’t help but laugh.Harry laughs with him, and thankfully, it seems that the tension between them is broken.

“I suppose not,” Louis admits with a shrug, folding his arms over his chest and taking another handful of steps back toward the middle of the room.It creates a bit more space between them, a bit more breathing room, which in turn lessens the tension even further. “Can’t have anyone getting the wrong idea.” They share a soft bit of laughter at that — at the sheer irony of it — before Harry quiets, shaking his head as goes on to address the question he’d been asked.

“In all seriousness, though,” he begins, and Louis gives him his full attention. “I wouldn’t have accepted the funding if they hadn’t planned on allowing you to have a part in the project — it wouldn’t have been right.”

Louis wants to laugh at that. He really, _really_ he does. And it’s not that the situation itself is particularly funny, it’s just… Harry.

Harry _“nearly-specialized-as-a-cardio-thoracic-surgeon”_ Styles _,_ and his absurdly thoughtful heart.He’s known surgeons, studied surgeons that would’ve taken someone else’s thoughts and ideas and stolen them for their own benefit without a second thought about it.So long as there was the possibility that it would get them published, or win them an award, they didn’t care who they stepped on along the way.But this absurd man would have turned the project down altogether if Northern Heights had decided not to let a first-year, already-behind-the-game intern have some of the credit.

It’s _ridiculous_. And Louis might love him for it, just a little bit.

“Thank you, Harry,” he says. His voice is softer than it really has a right to be, he knows, but between the unintentional snog, the long hours in the skills lab, and the emotional toll that the day has taken on him, he honestly just doesn’t have the energy to correct himself.And Harry is feeling the same, it seems, if the way that he lets his gaze linger upon Louis for just a little longer than necessary is anything to go by. His eyes are fond but tired, and his demeanor is definitely more distant than usual. Eventually, he sighs softly and looks away.

“Don’t mention it, Dr. Tomlinson,” he says, and that’s that.

There’s a brief and palpable silence that tails the end of their conversation, and it’s not exactly awkward so much as it’s just… completely and thoroughly loaded to the brim with thoughts and feelings and _wish-I-could-says_.

Neither one of them actually makes any move to leave the room until one of the scrub nurses comes bustling through the room, clearly not having expected anyone to have still been lingering about.She apologizes when she nearly knocks into Louis, entirely unaware that she’s disrupted anything at all, and goes on her way. The disturbance is welcomed, though, certainly, even if it doesn’t lead to anything more than the both of them clearing their throats and shuffling their feet. It’s a handful of moments, still, before either of them works up the courage to say or do anything, and even when Louis does manage to get some words out, they feel just a little bit forced.

“I’d better get going,” he says, finally, and nods toward the door. “I’m meant to be taking care of Amy’s post-ops about now.”

It’s the truth, but it still feels like a flimsy excuse. Harry hums his acknowledgment regardless, though, and Louis tracks his movement without really meaning to as he tucks his hands back into his pockets.

“Sure, of course,” he responds simply, and steps out of the way of the door.Louis takes that as his cue to get going; as little as he might want to, he bites his tongue and forces a smile, straightens his lab coat and combs a hand through his hair.He’s just gathered his confidence and he’s about to head for the door, but he finds himself taking pause at Harry’s next words. “I’ve got to head back to the PICU and check in on Logan, anyhow — he had his third surgery this morning.”

He cracks a smiles at that.He’s definitely popped in for his fair share of visits with Collin and Clara over the past couple of weeks — even when he wasn’t rounding in peds — and he’s glad to hear that their son is still doing well.He doesn’t think he can be blamed for the attachment he had formed to the Parker family, not really; they had been his first patients, after all.

“Tell his mum and dad hello for me,” he says as he continues toward the door, not allowing himself a glance back at Harry. If he allows himself a glance he won’t want to look away, and if he doesn’t look away — well. He still feels the other man’s presence, though, following close behind him as he heads out into the hallway, so he does take the time to make sure that the door doesn’t swing shut too quickly. But he doesn’t look at him — doesn’t trust himself to.

“I will,” he hears Harry promise and just like that he’s gone, and they’re off in separate directions once more.

He fully intends to do as he had said he was going to, both because he _does_ need to check in on Amy and because he doesn’t want to have lied to Harry’s face twice in one conversation. However, he doesn’t make it more than a few feet out of the scrub room before he runs into a couple of familiar faces.

Standing just outside of the door are Niall and Anna, and by the time Louis realizes they’re there, they both look a bit gobsmacked.Niall is holding one of the badly-frosted cupcakes from the cafeteria, and Anna is holding what looks to be one of the generic “congratulations” cards from the hospital’s gift shop, but the gifts and the celebration have clearly been forgotten altogether.

Anna takes one look at him, at his disarrayed hair and flushed cheeks and bitten lips, and grins.

“ _Santa mierda,_ you've got some explaining to do,” she laughs merrily, clearly delighted. Meanwhile, Niall is looking past him, clearly gaping in the direction of Harry’s retreating figure as he stands there, attempting to process what he’s seeing. 

“I _knew_ there was no attending in this place that would just ‘buy coffee’ for interns,” he declares, and turns his gaze back on Anna, who has yet to stop laughing.He promptly turns and holds the shitty cupcake out to Louis, then, sporting a shit-eating grin of his own. “Congratulations, mate.”

Louis groans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy SHIT, this took me way too long to write. Rest assured, I'm fully aware of that. 😅 But here she is! And she's longer than usual!  
> Thank you all so much for your patience. ♡ Comment, kudo, share the love. Chapter 5 hopefully coming very soon!


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